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ID)e ftfoerstoe literature Series 



/ / x t 



THE GREAT DEBATE 
lETWEEN HAYNE AND WEBSTER 

/ 

THE SPEECH OF DANIEL WEBSTER 

IN REPLY TO 

ROBERT YOUNG HAYNE 

EDITED BY 

LINDSAY , SWIFT 

i % 

OF THE BOSTON PUBLIC LIBBABY 




^liugrgfftc^re^ 



HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

Boston: 4 Park Street; New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street 
Chicago : 378-388 Wabash Avenue 

i3Efte iftifcftsitie jDrrs?, Cambridge 



11 

CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Fac-Simile of a page of the Webster Manuscript, now 

in the Boston Public Library. 
Stenographic Report of the corresponding portion of 

the Speech, as actually delivered. 

Sketch of Daniel Webster 103 ! 

Speech of Mr. Webster in Reply to Hayne . . .111 1 

[No 121 of the Riverside Literature Series contains the Speech of i 
Mr. Hayne, an account of the Occasion of the Great Debate, and a 
reproduction of G. P. A. Healy's painting in Faneuil HaU, known 
as "Webster's Reply to Hayne," with a key to the portraits in the I 
painting.] 






Copyright, 1898, 
By HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 



All rights reserved. 
/I 



I 



-/Off 



The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. 
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton and Company. 



\ 



PKEFACE. 

In the preparation of the speech of Mr. Hayne the 
text of the Boston edition of 1830 (Carter & Hendee) 
has been mainly followed. Mr. Webster's speech as 
here printed is based on the edition of his Works 
published in 1851 (Little & Brown). In cases of t 
doubt consultation has been had with the manuscript 
of the famous speech, which is now deposited in the 
Boston Public Library. 

The reproduction of Mr. Healy's painting is likely 
to interest those who may never have the fortune to 
see the original picture in Faneuil Hall, Boston ; and 
even the list of names of the eminent men and women 
who heard the Great Debate is a stimulus to recall so 
memorable an event. 

I wish hereby to express my thanks to the Trustees 
and the Librarian of the Boston Public Library for 
their courtesy in permitting the use of the Webster 
manuscript. Mr. Calvin W. Lewis, of Boston, has 
generously permitted me to use his unpublished notes, 
which have grown out of many years' admiration and 
study of Daniel Webster, and I am deeply obliged to 
him for the courtesy. 

L. o. 
Boston, December, 1897. 




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SKETCH OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 

As in the case of Benjamin Franklin, two States may- 
claim the honor of being the home of Daniel Webster. He 
was born in New Hampshire ; but his name is more closely- 
identified with Massachusetts, where he lived in his later 
years, and where his body is buried. He was the son of 
Ebenezer Webster, who married, as a second wife, Abigail 
Eastman, and who lived in Salisbury, New Hampshire, 
where Daniel was born on January 18, 1782, — the fifth in 
lineal descent from Thomas Webster, the first-comer from 
England of the family, which was supposed to be Scotch. 
It is essential to an understanding of Daniel Webster to 
remember that, though he was not of Puritan or Pilgrim 
stock, he was wholly an American, in whose make-up was 
no intermixture of alien blood. 

The unusual abilities of Daniel and of his elder brother, 
Ezekiel, were probably transmitted from his father's mo- 
ther, Susannah Bachelder, herself a descendant of the Rev. 
Stephen Bachelder, a man of unusual and eccentric parts. 
The superb physique of Webster's manhood was not indi- 
cated in his childhood, for he was so delicate as to be 
plainly unfitted for a farmer's toil, and was driven to out- 
door life rather for amusement than for occupation. When 
fourteen years of age he went to the Phillips Exeter Acad- 
emy, and in 1797 entered Dartmouth College, that veritable 
nurse of heroes. Though poorly fitted to enter college, he 
had studied the classics, after leaving Phillips Academy, 
with the Rev. Samuel Wood, of Boscawen. Any mention 
of Webster's early days should justly include an apprecia- 
tion of the self-sacrifices made by his parents to secure an 
education for him and his brother, both of whom felt and 



104 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

showed a proper gratitude. Daniel's rank was high at 
graduation ; but his career at college was that of a lad of 
promise rather than that of a profound scholar. He found 
time during his course to write for a weekly paper in Han- 
over and to deliver a Fourth of July oration, in which are 
to be found in embryo the great political principles of his 
whole life, — devotion to country, loyalty to its Constitution, 
and the sentiment of nationality. 

After graduation he studied law in the office of Thomas 
W. Thompson in Salisbury, but was soon obliged to teach 
school at Fryeburg, Maine, in order to help pay his brother 
Ezekiel's college expenses. In 1804 he was able to enter 
the law office of Christopher Gore, in Boston, where, in 
1805, he was admitted to the bar. From Boscawen, where 
he began practice and" where he found an unwelcome 
leisure, during which he wrote " An Appeal to the Old 
Whigs of New Hampshire " (1805), and other political 
contributions, he went in 1807 to Portsmouth. There he 
soon enjoyed a stimulating competition and helpful friend- 
ship with Jeremiah Mason, leader of the bar of Rockingham 
County, justly celebrated for the ability of its members. 

The agitation which preceded the War of 1812 found 
Webster on the Federalist side, and he contributed with 
voice and pen to the controversy. He inherited his political 
preferences from his father ; but he was by nature deeply 
though not narrowly conservative. He continued to hold a 
sort of modified Federalism, though, at the disappearance of 
the Federal party, he was forced to act with one of the 
several factions of the Democratic party until the definite 
formation of the Whig party. The " Rockingham Memo- 
rial," prepared by Mr. Webster in 1812, was addressed to 
the President, and is recognized as worthy ef t l ^° author's 
abilities. In 1813 he first took his seat national 

House of Representatives. During the ne years he 

was building his legal reputation and becc nown in 

cases before the Supreme Court. In 181 oved to 



SKETCH OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 105 

Boston, and in 1818 argued the famous Dartmouth College 
case x before the Supreme Court. 

The year 1820 found him active in the State Constitu- 
tional Convention of Massachusetts, where, with Judge 
Joseph Story, he took a most conspicuous and important 
part in all discussions. In December of the same year he 
delivered the first and one of the most celebrated of his 
great orations, — that on the two hundredth anniversary of 
Ihe landing of the Pilgrims. He reentered Congress in 
1823 ; and the year following, having been elected to the 
Nineteenth Congress by a vote of four thousand nine hun- 
dred and ninety out of five thousand votes thrown, he made 
his speech in the House on the appointment of a commis- 
sioner to Greece, then in the travail of her Revolution. In 
the years 1825 and 1826 were delivered two of his famous 

1 This famous case, before the Supreme Court, was virtually 
a contest between John Wheelock, formerly President of the 
College, and the Trustees, who had appointed the Rev. Francis 
Brown in Wheelock's place. The contest had developed into a 
party question in New Hampshire, the Democrats sustaining 
Wheelock and the Federalists the Trustees. Governor Plumer 
had appointed new trustees and overseers under a new law 
authorizing the reorganization of the college. The suit was 
brought by the original board against their former secretary, 
Judo-e Woodward, to recover the college seal and other pro- 
perty. Jeremiah Mason, Jeremiah Smith, and Daniel Webster 
(who had previously accepted a professional fee from Wheelock) 
appeared for the college before the Circuit Court. The case 
went against the plaintiffs, and was then taken up on a writ of 
error to the Supreme Court. Mr. Webster had against him 
William Wirt and later William Pinkney, then leader of the 
whole bar. The case was won largely by the wonderful force 
of Webster' s^oratory, and by the skill with which a court, 
a mfl.im.ltir of which was at first hostile to the college, was 
brc assent to the decision of Chief Justice Marshall, — 

tha jw Hampshire Legislature had impaired a contract, 

as the charter of the college to be within the Consti- 

tut John M. Shirley's Dartmouth College Causes (1879). 



106 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

orations, — the first on the laying of the corner-stone of 
Bunker Hill Monument, in the presence of Lafayette, and 
the second in commemoration of John Adams and Thomas 
Jefferson. From 1827 to 1841, Mr. Webster sat in the 
Senate of the United States from Massachusetts, and the 
speech which is the occasion of the present volume was 
the first of his most considerable triumphs in that body. 
He then came forward as the protagonist of the Constitution 
in opposition to those attacks which were soon to take the 
form of openly proclaimed nullification. His reply to Cal- 
houn, three years later, forms a fit companion speech to the 
reply to Hayne, though it is not so well remembered. This 
was the most active period of Webster's career, as is testi- 
fied by his speeches on the constitutionality of the United 
States Bank, on the removal of the deposits, on the Sub- 
treasury plan, and on the South Carolina Ordinance of 
nullification. His renown as a lawyer was still further sus- 
tained by his part in the prosecution of the Knapp brothers 
in the White murder trial (1831). 

Mr. Webster passed the larger part of 1839 in Europe, 
spending the summer and autumn in France and Great 
Britain, where he received gratifying evidence of the 
extent of his reputation. President Harrison offered him 
the choice of a place in his cabinet, and Webster selected 
the Secretaryship of State. At that time (1841) certain 
important matters called for the highest ability which the 
country could command in the direction of foreign affairs, 
particularly in regard to the New Brunswick and Maine 
boundary, and the right of search as claimed by England, 
— one of the questions left unsettled by the War of 1812. 
To his efforts, aided by the wisdom of Judge Story, is 
mainly due a successful issue to the tangled negotiations 
which resulted in the Treaty of Washington. 

After a month in office Harrison died, and Tyler, who 
then became President, was so fortunate as to retain Web- 
ster in the cabinet in 1843, in the face of the resignation of 



SKETCH OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 107 

the other members. At no period of his life did "YYeJbster 
act with more independence and courage. It was at this 
time that he said : " I am, gentlemen, a little hard to 
coax ; but as to being driven, that is out of the question." 

Again elected to the Senate in 1844, his efforts were 
against the approaching war with Mexico, although he did 
not act in a sectional or contentious spirit. In 1846 (April 
6 and 7) he made one of his strongest speeches in defense 
of the Ashburton Treaty, in which appeared his denunciation 
of Ingersoll of Pennsylvania. Close upon heavy personal 
bereavement came the chagrin of General Taylor's nomi- 
nation. Disgusted with this event, Mr. Webster seemed to 
take an attitude toward slavery which made it wholly pos- 
sible for him to part with the Whigs and to range him- 
self as a leader of the Free Soilers, with whose declara- 
tions his own were now apparently in accord. So matters 
went up to the next great crisis in his career, and in 
reality the decisive one. The contention — during which 
he delivered his Seventh of March speech — was over the 
admission of California and New Mexico. By supporting 
the Compromise of 1850, he sought to avert a danger threat- 
ening, as it no doubt appeared to him, the very existence 
of the Union ; he advocated the admission of California, 
anti-slavery constitution and all ; the organization of New 
Mexico without the application of the Wilmot Proviso ; x and 
a new Fugitive Slave Law, by which the slave might have 
the right of trial by jury. The effect of this speech is well 
known. The various causes which induced Mr. Webster 
to take the ground which he did are too complex for dis- 
cussion here. The speech added nothing to Mr. Webster's 
strength, except in the South ; but, as Mr. Lodge has said, 
the South was practical, and not in the least quixotic 
concerning candidates for the presidency. The manhood 
of the North mainly turned from Mr. Webster, concerning 

1 By the Wilmot Proviso, slavery was to be excluded from all 
territory thereafter acquired or annexed. 



108 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

whose integrity there had long been uneasiness. Regard- 
ing his later attitude toward slavery this much is certain : 
there is no moral reconciliation between the Plymouth 
oration in 1820 and the speech of March 7, 1850. Fur- 
thermore, the period of his life best represented by the 
reply to Hayne is the highest point of his career. From 
that time there was a decline, sure if insensible, although 
his course in Tyler's cabinet was beyond criticism. 

President Fillmore appointed Webster to the Secretary- 
ship of State, and this office he held until his death. ,His 
last great address was at the laying of the corner-stone of 
the extension of the Capitol on the Fourth of July, 1851 ; 
and his last great legal contest was in January, 1852, over 
the Goodyear patent case, in which he was successful. 

This year Mr. Webster failed to get the nomination of 
the Whig party, which was given to General Scott. He 
had been a candidate for twelve years and in four succes- 
sive Whig conventions, but had been balloted for in only 
two, and his highest vote was only one ninth of the total 
cast. Mr. Webster was never popular, in the usual sense. 
In May, 1852, he was thrown from his carriage, and this 
accident, added to an organic disease and to the chagrin of 
losing what he felt to be his due, proved to be one cause of 
his death, which came on October 24 at Marshfield, where 
he had spent the summer in failing health. 

In 1808 Mr. Webster had married Grace Fletcher, who 
bore him five children. One son, Charles, died in the 
Mexican War, and one, (David) Fletcher, was killed in 
battle near Bull Run, August 3, 1862. His second wife 
was Miss Caroline B. Leroy, whom he married in 1829, the 
year in which he lost his beloved brother Ezekiel. 

Much has been written of Mr. Webster's imposing per- 
sonal presence, and there is no doubt that in his earlier 
years this was impressive almost to the point of majesty. 
But in later life the perception of his relation to the rest 
of mankind became so distorted as to allow him at times 



SKETCH OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 

to adopt a pomposity of manner that was, more than ai 
thing else, pathetic. His sense of humor alone would havt 
saved him from this as a younger man, but that saving 
element seemed to become absorbed into the self-consider- 
ation which marked his declining years. The Hon. Mellen 
Chamberlain, in commenting upon certain phases of Web- 
ster's character, says : — 

" He was a rustic, yet with marks of gentle blood in his 
shapely hands and feet, his well-proportioned limbs, and 
his high-bred face of no known type, unlike even his own 
brother, who was of Grecian form and face. We know 
that soil and climate affect character ; but it is not easy to 
accept, save as a poetic theory, the < pathetic fallacy ' with 
which Wordsworth imbued his generation and our own, 
that Nature has conscious relations with 

' Her foster-child, her inmate, Man,' 

and forms his principles and regulates his methods of action 
agreeably to her own. But Daniel Webster was very like 
Nature. Like her, he was unethical ; like her, he was not 
revolutionary ; and, like her, he applied his powers along 
the lines of normal development." 

Webster's voice never lost the mellow quality which so 
stirred the audiences of his day; and yet it is hard to 
believe that this was so large a factor as is generally sup- 
posed in the making of his reputation as an orator, when 
we consider the power which his words have possessed 
since his voice became still, and since the issues which 
called them forth have long been dead. Judge Chamber- 
lain may well be quoted again as to the significance of 
Webster's oratory : — 

" The inspiration of great endeavor is its immortality ; 
the potency of great achievement is its indestruetibleness. 
The past assures the future. The discourses at Plymouth 
Rock and at Bunker Hill were not for an hour ; nor was 
the Great Reply. In the days of their utterance they were 



THE GREAT DEBATE. 

endent, unprecedented eloquence ; but they spoke truest 

n they became wisdom to Lincoln and valor to Grant ; 

jy rang loudest when heard along the front of battle, 

id inspired deeds of immortal heroism on a hundred 

lelds." 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER IN REPLY TO 

MR. HAYNE, 

IN THE SENATE, ON FOOTE'S RESOLUTION, 

Tuesday and Wednesday, January 26 and 27, 1830. 

Mr. President, — When the mariner has been 
tossed for many days in thick weather and on an 
unknown sea, he naturally avails himself of the first 
pause in the storm, the earliest glance of the sun, to 
take his latitude and ascertain how far the elements 
have driven him from his true course. Let us imitate 
this prudence, and, before we float farther on the 
waves of this debate, refer to the point from which we 
departed, that we may at least be able to conjecture 
where we now are. I ask for the reading of the reso- 
lution before the Senate. 

The secretary read the resolution, as follows : — • 

" Resolved, That the committee on public lands be 
instructed to inquire and report the quantity of public 
lands remaining unsold within each State and Terri- 
tory, and whether it be expedient to limit for a cer- 
tain period the sales of the public lands to such lands 
only as have heretofore been offered for sale, and are 
now subject to entry at the minimum price. And, 
also, whether the office of surveyor-general, and some 
of the land offices, may not be abolished without de- 
triment to the public interest ; or whether it be expe- 
dient to adopt measures to hasten the sales and extend 
more rapidly the surveys of the public lands." 



112 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

We have thus heard, sir, what the resolution is 
which is actually before us for consideration ; and it 
will readily occur to every one that it is almost the 
only subject about which something has not been said 
in the speech, running through two days, by which 
the Senate has been entertained by the gentleman 
from South Carolina. Every topic in the wide range 
of our public affairs, whether past or present, — every- 
thing general or local, whether belonging to national 
politics or party politics, — seems to have attracted 
more or less of the honorable member's attention, save 
only the resolution before the Senate. He has spoken 
of everything but the public lands ; they have escaped 
his notice. To that subject, in all his excursions, he 
has not paid even the cold respect of a passing glance. 

When this debate, sir, was to be resumed on Thurs- 
day morning [January 21], it so happened that it would 
have been convenient for me to be elsewhere. 1 The 
honorable member, however, did not incline to put off 
the discussion to another day. He had a shot, he 
said, to return, and he wished to discharge it. That 
shot, sir, which he thus kindly informed us was com- 
ing, that we might stand out of the way or prepare 
ourselves to fall by it and die with decency, has now 
been received. Under all advantages, and with ex- 
pectation awakened by the tone which preceded it, 
it has been discharged and has spent its force. It 
may become me to say no more of its effect than that, 

1 In the Supreme Court, in the case of Carver v. Jackson ex 
dem. Astor (4 Peters, 1), better known as Carver's Lessees against 
John Jacob Astor. Mr. Webster and Greene C. Bronson, the 
Attorney-General for New York, were for the plaintiff, and 
David B. Ogden and William Wirt for the defendant. The 
defendant won. 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 113 

if nobody is found, after all, either killed or wounded, 
it is not the first time in the history of human affairs 
that the vigor and success of the war have not quite 
come up to the lofty and sounding phrase of the mani- 
festo. 

The gentleman, sir, in declining to postpone the 
debate, told the Senate, with the emphasis of his hand 
upon his heart, that there was something rankling here 
which he wished to relieve. [Mr. Hayne rose and 
disclaimed having used the word rankling, but accord- 
ing to Gales and Seaton's " Register of Debates " the 
word was used.] It would not, Mr. President, be 
safe for the honorable member to appeal to those 
around him upon the question whether he did in fact 
make use of that word. But he may have been uncon- 
scious of it. At any rate, it is enough that he dis- 
claims it. But still, with or without the use of that 
particular word, he had yet something here, he said, 
of which he wished to rid himself by an immediate 
reply. In this respect, sir, I have a great advantage 
over the honorable gentleman. There is nothing here, 
sir, which gives me the slightest uneasiness ; neither 
fear, nor anger, nor that which is sometimes more 
troublesome than either, the consciousness of having 
been in the wrong. There is nothing, either origi- 
nating here, or now received here by the gentleman's 
shot. Nothing originating here, for I had not the 
slightest feeling of unkindness towards the honorable 
member. Some passages, it is true, had occurred since 
our acquaintance in this body, which I could have 
wished might have been otherwise ; but I had used 
philosophy and forgotten them. 1 I paid the honora- 

1 In the latter part of the preceding session, Webster had 
called upon President Adams for the instructions to the minis- 



114 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

ble member the attention of listening with respect to 
his first speech ; and when he sat down, though sur- 
prised, and I must even say astonished, at some of his 
opinions, nothing was farther from my intention than 
to commence any personal warfare. Through the 
whole of the few remarks I made in answer, I avoided, 
studiously and carefully, everything which I thought 
possible to be construed into disrespect. And, sir, 
while there is thus nothing originating here which I 
wished at any time or now wish to discharge, I must 
repeat also, that nothing has been received here which 
rankles, or in any way gives me annoyance. I will 
not accuse the honorable member of violating the 
rules of civilized war ; I will not say that he poisoned 
his arrows. But whether his shafts were or were 
not dipped in that which would have caused rankling 
if they had reached their destination, there was not, 
as it happened, quite strength enough in the bow to 
bring them to their mark. If he wishes now to gather 
up those shafts, he must look for them elsewhere ; 
they will not be found fixed and quivering in the 
object at which they were aimed. 

The honorable member complained that I had slept 
on his speech. I must have slept on it, or not slept 
at all. The moment the honorable member sat down, 
his friend from Missouri [Mr. Benton] rose, and, 
with much honeyed commendation of the speech, sug- 
gested that the impressions which it had produced 
were too charming and delightful to be disturbed by 
other sentiments or other sounds, and proposed that 

ters to the Congress of Panama. Though the resolution was 
defeated, Adams before March 4 sent the documents to the 
Senate. Hayne had somewhat strongly antagonized Webster 
and the administration in this matter. 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 115 

the Senate should adjourn. Would it have been quite 
amiable in me, sir, to interrupt this excellent good 
feeling? Must I not have been absolutely malicious 
if I could have thrust myself forward to destroy sen- 
sations thus pleasing ? Was it not much better and 
kinder both to sleep upon them myself and to allow 
others also the pleasure of sleeping upon them ? But, 
if it be meant by sleeping upon his speech that I took 
time to prepare a reply to it, it is quite a mistake. 
Owing to other engagements, I could not employ even 
the interval between the adjournment of the Senate 
and its meeting the next morning in attention to the 
subject of this debate. Nevertheless, sir, the mere 
matter of fact is undoubtedly true. I did sleep on 
the gentleman's speech and slept soundly. And I 
slept equally well on his speech of yesterday, to which 
I am now replying. It is quite possible that in this 
respect, also, I possess some advantage over the hon- 
orable member, attributable, doubtless, to a cooler 
temperament on my part ; for, in truth, I slept upon 
his speeches remarkably well. 

But the gentleman inquires why he was made the 
object of such a reply. Why was he singled out ? If 
an attack has been made on the East, he, he assures 
us, did not begin it ; it was made by the gentleman 
from Missouri [Mr. Benton]. Sir, I answered the 
gentleman's speech because I happened to hear it; 
and because, also, I chose to give an answer to that 
speech which, if unanswered, I thought most likely 
to produce injurious impressions. I did not stop to 
inquire who was the original drawer of the bill. I 
found a responsible indorser before me, and it was my 
purpose to hold him liable, and to bring him to his 
just responsibility without delay. But, sir, this inter- 



116 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

rogatory of the honorable member was only introduc- 
tory to another. He proceeded to ask me whether I 
had turned upon him in this debate from the con- 
sciousness that I should find an overmatch if I ven- 
tured on a contest with his friend from Missouri. If, 
sir, the honorable member, modestice gratia, had chosen 
thus to defer to his friend and to pay him a compli- 
ment without intentional disparagement to others, it 
would have been quite according to the friendly cour- 
tesies of debate, and not at all ungrateful to my own 
feelings. I am not one of those, sir, who esteem any 
tribute of regard, whether light and occasional or 
more serious and deliberate, which may be bestowed 
on others, as so much unjustly withholden from them- 
selves. But the tone and manner of the gentleman's 
question forbid me thus to interpret it. I am«not at 
liberty to consider it as nothing more than a civility 
to his friend. It had an air of taunt and disparage- 
ment, something of the loftiness of asserted superior- 
ity, which does not allow me to pass it over without 
notice. It was put as a question for me to answer, 
and so put as if it were difficult for me to answer, 
whether I deemed the member from Missouri an over- 
match for myself in debate here. It seems to me, sir, 
that this is extraordinary language and an extraordi- 
nary tone for the discussions of this body. 

Matches and overmatches ! Those terms are more 
applicable elsewhere than here, and fitter for other 
assemblies than this. Sir, the gentleman seems to 
forget where and what we are. This is a senate, a 
senate of equals, of men of individual honor and per- 
sonal character and of absolute independence. We 
know no masters, we acknowledge no dictators. This 
is a hall for mutual consultation and discussion ; not 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 117 

an arena for the exhibitions of champions. I offer 
myself, sir, as a match for no man ; I throw the chal- 
lenge of debate at no man's feet. But then, sir, since 
the honorable member has put the question in a man- 
ner that calls for an answer, I will give him an answer ; 
and I tell him that, holding myself to be the humblest 
of the members here, I yet know nothing in the arm 
of his friend from Missouri, either alone or when 
aided by the arm of his friend from South Carolina, 
that need deter even me from espousing whatever 
opinions I may choose to espouse, from debating when- 
ever I may choose to debate, or from speaking what- 
ever I may see fit to say on the floor of the Senate. 
Sir, when uttered as matter of commendation or com- 
pliment, I should dissent from nothing which the hon- 
orable member might say of his friend. Still less do 
I put forth any pretensions of my own. But when 
put to me as matter of taunt, I throw it back, and say 
to the gentleman that he could possibly say nothing 
less likely than such a comparison to wound my pride 
of personal character. The anger of its tone rescued 
the remark from intentional irony, which otherwise, 
probably, would have been its general acceptation. 
But, sir, if it be imagined that by this mutual quota- 
tion and commendation ; if it be supposed that, by 
casting the characters of the drama, assigning to each 
his part, to one the attack, to another the cry of onset ; 
or if it be thought that by a loud and empty vaunt of 
anticipated victory, any laurels are to be won here ; 
if it be imagined, especially, that any or all of these 
things will shake any purpose of mine, — I can tell the 
honorable member, once for all, that he is greatly 
mistaken, and that he is dealing with one of whose 
temper and character he has yet much to learn. Sir, 



118 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

I shall not allow myself on this occasion, I hope on 
no occasion, to be betrayed into any loss of temper ; 
but if provoked, as I trust I never shall be, into crim- 
ination and recrimination, the honorable member may 
perhaps find that, in that contest, there will be blows 
to take as well as blows to give ; that others can state 
comparisons as significant, at least, as his own ; and 
that his impunity may possibly demand of him what- 
ever powers of taunt and sarcasm he may possess. I 
commend him to a prudent husbandry of his resources. 
But, sir, the Coalition ! 1 The Coalition ! Ay, " the 
murdered Coalition ! ' The gentleman asks if I were 
led or frighted into this debate by the spectre of 
the Coalition. " Was it the ghost of the murdered 
Coalition," he exclaims, " which haunted the member 
from Massachusetts ; and which, like the ghost of 
Banquo, would never down ? ' " The murdered Coali- 
tion ! " Sir, this charge of a coalition, in reference 
to the late administration, is not original with the hon- 
orable member. It did not spring up in the Senate. 
Whether as a fact, as an argument, or as an embel- 
lishment, it is all borrowed. He adopts it, indeed, 
from a very low origin, and a still lower present con- 
dition. It is one of the thousand calumnies with 
which the press teemed during an excited political 
canvass. It was a charge of which there was not only 
no proof or probability, but which was in itself wholly 
impossible to be true. No man of common informa- 
tion ever believed a syllable of it. Yet it was of that 
class of falsehoods which, by continued repetition, 
through all the organs of detraction and abuse, are 

1 See the note on page 26 of Hayne's Speech regarding the 
alleged bargain between the friends of John Quincy Adams and 
Henry Clay. 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 119 

capable of misleading those who are already far mis- 
led, and of further fanning passion already kindling 
into flame. Doubtless it served in its day, and in 
greater or less degree, the end designed by it. Hav- 
ing clone that, it has sunk into the general mass of 
stale and loathed calumnies. It is the very cast-off 
slough of a polluted and shameless press. Incapable 
of further mischief, it lies in the sewer, lifeless and 
despised. It is not now, sir, in the power of the honor- 
able member to give it dignity or decency by attempt- 
ing to elevate it and to introduce it into the Senate. 
He cannot change it from what it is, an object of gen- 
eral disgust and scorn. On the contrary, the contact, 
if he choose to touch it, is more likely to drag him 
down, down to the place where it lies itself. 

But, sir, the honorable member was not, for other 
reasons, entirely happy in his allusion to the story of 
Banquo's murder and Banquo's ghost. It was not, I 
think, the friends, but the enemies of the murdered 
Banquo, at whose bidding his spirit would not down. 
The honorable gentleman is fresh in his reading of 
the English classics, and can put me right if I am 
wrong ; but, according to my poor recollection, it was 
at those who had begun with caresses and ended with 
foul and treacherous murder that the gory locks were 
shaken. The ghost of Banquo, like that of Hamlet, 
was an honest ghost. It disturbed no innocent man. 
It knew where its appearance would strike terror, and 
who would cry out, A ghost ! It made itself visible 
in the right quarter, and compelled the guilty and the 
conscience-smitten, and none others, to start, with 

"Prithee! see there ! behold! — look! lo! ... 
If I stand here, I saw him." x 

1 See Shakespeare's Macbeth, act iii. scene 4 ; the allusions 



120 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

Their eyeballs were seared (was it not so, sir ? ) who 
had thought to shield themselves by concealing their 
own hand, and laying the imputation of the crime on 
a low and hireling agency in wickedness ; who had 
vainly attempted to stifle the workings of their own 
coward consciences by ejaculating through white lips 
and chattering teeth, " Thou canst not say I did it ! ' 
I have misread the great poet if those who had no way 
partaken in the deed of the death either found that 
they were, or feared that they should be, pushed from 
their stools by the ghost of the slain, or exclaimed to 
a spectre created by their own fears and their own 
remorse, " Avaunt ! and quit our sight ! " 

There is another particular, sir, in which the honor- 
able member's quick perception of resemblances might, 
I should think, have seen something in the story of 
Banquo, making it not altogether a subject of the most 
pleasant contemplation. Those who murdered Banquo, 
— what did they win by it ? Substantial good ? Per- 
manent power ? Or disappointment, rather, and sore 
mortification ; dust and ashes, the common fate of 
vaulting ambition overleaping itself ? Did not even- 
handed justice erelong commend the poisoned chalice 
to their own lips ? Did they not soon find that for 
another they had " 'filed their mind " ? that their 
ambition, though apparently for the moment success- 
ful, had but put a barren sceptre in their grasp? 
Ay, sir, 

" a barren sceptre in their gripe, 
Thence to be wrench' d with an unlineal hand, 
No son of theirs succeeding.'''' 1 

to Banquo refer to this scene. The allusion to Hamlet's ghost 
is of course to Hamlet's father, whose name is mentioned in act 
i. scene 2, line 1, of the play. 

1 See Macbeth, act iii. scene 1. A most pointed allusion to 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 121 

Sir, I need pursue the allusion no farther. I leave 
the honorable gentleman to run it out at his leisure, 
and to derive from it all the gratification it is calcu- 
lated to administer. If he finds himself pleased with 
the associations, and prepared to be quite satisfied, 
though the parallel should be entirely completed, I 
had almost said I am satisfied also ; but that I shall 
think of. Yes, sir, I will think of that. 

In the course of my observations the other day, Mr. 
President, I paid a passing tribute of respect to a very 
worthy man, Mr. Dane of Massachusetts. It so hap- 
pened that he drew the Ordinance of 1787, 1 for the 
government of the Northwestern Territory. A man 
of so much ability, and so little pretense ; of so great 
a capacity to do good, and so unmixed a disposition 
to do it for its own sake ; a gentleman who acted an 
important part, forty years ago, in a measure the 
influence of which is still deeply felt in the very mat- 
Vice-President Calhoun's prospects for the presidency. It was 
already evident that Van Bnren was Jackson's heir apparent, 
and shortly came the open breach between the President and 
the Vice-President. 

1 Bancroft's opinion, if sententious, is worth recalling : 
" Thomas Jefferson first summoned Congress to prohibit sla- 
very in all the territory of the United States ; Rufus King lifted 
up the measure when it lay almost lifeless on the ground, and 
suggested the immediate instead of the prospective prohibition ; 
a congress composed of five Southern States to one from New 
England, and two from the- Middle States, headed by William 
Grayson, supported by Richard Henry Lee, and using Nathan 
Dane as scribe, carried the measure to the goal in the amended 
form in which King: had caused it to be referred to a com- 
mittee, and, as Jefferson had proposed, placed it under the 
sanction of an irrevocable compact." History of the United 
States (1885), vi. 290. See also the notes on page 28 of Hayne's 
Speech. 



122 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

ter which was the subject of debate, might, I thought, 
receive from me a commendatory recognition. But 
the honorable member was inclined to be facetious on 
the subject. He was rather disposed to make it mat- 
ter of ridicule that I had introduced into the debate 
the name of one Nathan Dane, of whom he assures us 
he had never before heard. Sir, if the honorable 
member had never before heard of Mr. Dane, I am 
sorry for it. It shows him less acquainted with the 
public men of the country than I had supposed. Let 
me tell him, however, that a sneer from him at the 
mention of the name of Mr. Dane is in bad taste. It 
may well be a high mark of ambition, sir, either with 
the honorable gentleman or myself, to accomplish as 
much to make our names known to advantage, and 
remembered with gratitude, as Mr. Dane has accom- 
plished. But the truth is, sir, I suspect that Mr. 
Dane lives a little too far north. He is of Massachu- 
setts, and too near the north star to be reached by the 
honorable gentleman's telescope. If his sphere had 
happened to range south of Mason and Dixon's line, 
he might, probably, have come within the scope of his 
vision. 

I spoke, sir, of the Ordinance of 1787, which pro- 
hibits slavery, in all future times, northwest of the 
Ohio, as a measure of great wisdom and foresight, 
and one which had been attended with highly benefi- 
cial and permanent consequences. I supposed that, 
on this point, no two gentlemen in the Senate could 
entertain different opinions. But the simple expres- 
sion of this sentiment has led the gentleman not only 
into a labored defense of slavery, in the abstract and 
on principle, but also into a warm accusation against 
me, as having attacked the system of domestic slavery 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 123 

now existing in the Southern States. For all this 
there was not the slightest foundation in anything 
said or intimated by me. I did not utter a single 
word which any ingenuity could torture into an attack 
on the slavery of the South. I said only that it was 
highly wise and useful, in legislating for the North- 
western country while it was yet a wilderness, to 
prohibit the introduction of slaves ; and added that I 
presumed there was no reflecting and intelligent per- 
son in the neighboring State of Kentucky who would 
doubt that, if the same prohibition had been extended 
at the same early period over that commonwealth, her 
strength and population would at this day have been 
far greater than they are. If these opinions be thought 
doubtful, they are nevertheless, I trust, neither extraor- 
dinary nor disrespectful. They attack nobody and 
menace nobody. And yet, sir, the gentleman's optics 
have discovered, even in the mere expression of this 
sentiment, what he calls the very spirit of the Mis- 
souri question ! He represents me as making an onset 
on the whole South, and manifesting a spirit which 
would interfere with and disturb their domestic condi- 
tion ! 

Sir, this injustice no otherwise surprises me than 
as it is committed here, and committed without the 
slightest pretense of ground for it. I say it only sur- 
prises me as being done here ; for I know full well 
that it is and has been the settled policy of some per- 
sons in the South, for years, to represent the people 
of the North as disposed to interfere with them in 
their own exclusive and peculiar concerns. This is a 
delicate and sensitive point in Southern feeling ; and 
of late years it has always been touched, and gener- 
ally with effect, whenever the object has been to unite 



124 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

the whole South against Northern men or Northern 
measures. This feeling, always carefully kept alive, 
and maintained at too intense a heat to admit discrim- 
ination or reflection, is a lever of great power in our 
political machine. It moves vast bodies, and gives to 
them one and the same direction. But it is with- 
out adequate cause, and the suspicion which exists is 
wholly groundless. There is not, and never has been, 
a disposition in the North to interfere with these 
interests of the South. Such interference has never 
been supposed to be within the power of government ; 
nor has it been in any way attempted. The slavery 
of the South has always been regarded as a matter of 
domestic policy left with the States themselves, and 
with which the federal government had nothing to do. 
Certainly, sir, I am, and ever have been, of that opin- 
ion. The gentleman, indeed, argues that slavery in 
the abstract is no evil. Most assuredly I need not 
say I differ with him altogether and most widely on 
that point. I regard domestic slavery as one of the 
greatest evils, both moral and political. But whether 
it be a malady, and whether it be curable, and, if so, 
by what means ; or, on the other hand, whether it be 
the vulnus immedicabile of the social system, I leave 
it to those whose right and duty it is to inquire and to 
decide. And this I believe, sir, is, and uniformly has 
been, the sentiment of the North. Let us look a little 
at the history of this matter. 

When the present Constitution was submitted for 
the ratification of the people, there were those who 
imagined that the powers of the government which it 
proposed to establish might, in some possible mode, be 
exerted in measures tending to the abolition of sla- 
very. This suggestion would of course attract much 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 125 

attention in the Southern conventions. In that of 
Virginia, Governor Randolph 1 said : — 

44 1 hope there is none here who, considering the 
subject in the calm light of philosophy, will make an 
objection dishonorable to Virginia ; that, at the mo- 
ment they are securing the rights of their citizens, an 
objection is started that there is a spark of hope that 
those unfortunate men now held in bondage may, by 
the operation of the general government, be made 

free." 

At the very first Congress, petitions on the sub- 
ject were presented, if I mistake not, from different 
States. The Pennsylvania Society for promoting the 
abolition of slavery took a lead, and laid before Con- 
gress a memorial praying Congress to promote the 
abolition by such powers as it possessed. This me- 
morial was referred, in the House of Representatives, 
to a select committee consisting of Mr. Foster of New 
Hampshire, Mr. Gerry of Massachusetts, Mr. Hunt- 
ington of Connecticut, Mr. Lawrence of New York, 
Mr. Sinnickson of New Jersey, Mr. Hartley of Penn- 
sylvania, and Mr. Parker of Virginia ; all of them, 
sir, as you will observe, Northern men but the last. 
This committee made a report, which was referred to 
a committee of the whole House, and there considered 
and discussed for several days ; and being amended, 
although without material alteration, it was made to 
express three distinct propositions on the subject of 
slavery and the slave-trade. First, in the words of 
the Constitution, that Congress could not, prior to the 
year 1808, prohibit the migration or importation of 
such persons as any of the States then existing should 
think proper to admit ; and, secondly, that Congress 

1 Edmund Randolph. 



126 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

had authority to restrain the citizens of the United 
States from carrying on the African slave-trade for 
the purpose of supplying foreign countries. On this 
proposition our early laws against those who engage 
in that traffic are founded. The third proposition, 
and that which bears on the present question, was 
expressed in the following terms : — 

"Resolved, That Congress have no authority to 
interfere in the emancipation of slaves, or in the 
treatment of them in any of the States ; it remain- 
ing with the several States alone to provide rules and 
regulations therein, which humanity and true policy 
may require." 

This resolution received the sanction of the House 
of Representatives so early as March, 1790. And 
now, sir, the honorable member will allow me to 
remind him that not only were the select committee 
who reported the resolution, with a single exception, 
all Northern men, but also that, of the members then 
composing the House of Representatives, a large ma- 
jority, I believe nearly two thirds, were Northern men 
also. 

The House agreed to insert these resolutions in its 
journal ; and from that day to this it has never been 
maintained or contended at the North that Congress 
had any authority to regulate or interfere with the 
condition of slaves in the several States. No North- 
ern gentleman, to my knowledge, has moved any such 
question in either house of Congress. 

The fears of the South, whatever fears they might 
have entertained, were allayed and quieted by this 
early decision ; and so remained till they were excited 
afresh, without cause, but for collateral and indirect 
purposes. When it became necessary, or was thought 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 127 

so by some political persons, to find an unvarying 
ground for the exclusion of Northern men from confi- 
dence and from lead in the affairs of the republic, 
then, and not till then, the cry was raised, and the 
feeling industriously excited, that the influence of 
Northern men in the public councils would endanger 
the relation of master and slave. For myself, I claim 
no other merit than that this gross and enormous 
injustice towards the whole North has not wrought 
upon me to change my opinions or my political con- 
duct. I hope I am above violating my principles, 
even under the smart of injury and false imputations. 
Unjust suspicions and undeserved reproach, whatever 
pain I may experience from them, will not induce 
me, I trust, to overstep the limits of constitutional 
duty, or to encroach on the rights of others. The 
domestic slavery of the Southern States I leave where 
I find it, — in the hands of their own governments. 
It is their affair, not mine. Nor do I complain of the 
peculiar effect which the magnitude of that popula- 
tion has had in the distribution of power under this 
federal government. We know, sir, that the repre- 
sentation of the States in the other house is not equal. 
We know that great advantage in that respect is en- 
joyed by the slave-holding States ; and we know, too, 
that the intended equivalent for that advantage, that 
is to say, the imposition of direct taxes in the same 
ratio, has become merely nominal, the habit of the 
government being almost invariably to collect its reve- 
nue from other sources and in other modes. Never- 
theless, I do not complain ; nor would I countenance 
any movement to alter this arrangement of represen- 
tation. It is the original bargain, the compact ; let 
it stand ; let the advantage of it be fully enjoyed. 



128 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

The Union itself is too full of benefit to be hazarded 
in propositions for changing its original basis. I go 
for the Constitution as it is, and for the Union as it is. 
But I am resolved not to submit in silence to accusa- 
tions, either against myself individually or against 
the North, wholly unfounded and unjust ; accusations 
which impute to us a disposition to evade the con- 
stitutional compact, and to extend the power of the 
government over the internal laws and domestic con- 
dition of the States. All such accusations, wherever 
and whenever made, all insinuations of the existence 
of any such purposes, I know and feel to be groundless 
and injurious. And we must confide in Southern 
gentlemen themselves ; we must trust to those whose 
integrity of heart and magnanimity of feeling will lead 
them to a desire to maintain and disseminate truth, 
and who possess the means of its diffusion with the 
Southern public ; we must leave it to them to disa- 
buse that public of its prejudices. But in the mean 
time, for my own part, I shall continue to act justly, 
whether those towards whom justice is exercised re- 
ceive it with candor or with contumely. 

Having" had occasion to recur to the Ordinance of 
1787, in order to defend myself against the inferences 
which the honorable member has chosen to draw from 
my former observations on that subject, I am not will- 
ing now entirely to take leave of it without another 
remark. It need hardly be said that that paper 
expresses just sentiments on the great subject of civil 
and religious liberty. Such sentiments were common, 
and abound in all our state papers of that day. But 
this Ordinance did that which was not so common, 
and which is not, even now, universal ; that is, it set 
forth and declared it to be a high and binding duty 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 129 

of government itself to encourage schools, and advance 
the means of education, on the plain reason that reli- 
gion, morality, and knowledge are necessary to good 
government, and to the happiness of mankind. One 
observation further. The important provision incor- 
porated into the Constitution of the United States, 
and into several of those of the States,, and recently, 
as we have seen, adopted into the reformed Consti- 
tution of Virginia, 1 restraining legislative power in 
questions of private right, and from impairing the 
obligation of contracts, is first introduced and estab- 
lished, as far as I am informed, as matter of express 
written constitutional law, in this Ordinance of 1787. 
And I must add, also, in regard to the author of the 
Ordinance, who has not had the happiness to attract 
the gentleman's notice heretofore, nor to avoid his 
sarcasm now, that he was chairman of that select 
committee of the old Congress whose report first 
expressed the strong sense of that body that the old 
Confederation was not adequate to the exigencies of 
the country, and recommended to the States to send 
delegates to the convention which formed the present 
Constitution. 

An attempt has been made to transfer from the 
North to the South the honor of this exclusion of 
slavery from the Northwestern Territory. 2 The jour- 

1 Adopted by convention on January 14, 1830, and ratified 
by the people in April of the same year. 

2 This refers to Mr. Benton, who again took up this portion 
of Mr. Webster's speech on May 21, and once more in his 
Thirty Years' View, vol. i. chap, xliv., wherein he convicts Web- 
ster of important errors, in particular showing' that only six 
States voted in the affirmative (the vote of New Jersey remain- 
ing uncounted), and that only seven States were necessary to 
pass the anti-slavery clause. 



130 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

nal, without argument or comment, refutes such at- 
tempt. The cession by Virginia 1 was made in March, 
1784. On the 19th of April following, a committee, 
consisting of Messrs. Jefferson, Chase, and Howell, 
reported a plan for a temporary government of the 
Territory, in which was this article : " That, after the 
year 1800, there shall be neither slavery nor involun- 
tary servitude in any of the said States, otherwise 
than in punishment of crimes whereof the party shall 
have been convicted." Mr. Spaight of North Carolina 
moved to strike out this paragraph. The question was 
put, according to the form then practiced : " Shall 
these words stand as a part of the plan ? ' New Hamp- 
shire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New 
York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania — seven States 
— voted in the affirmative ; Maryland, Virginia, and 
South Carolina, in the negative. North Carolina was 
divided. As the consent of nine States was necessary, 
the words could not stand, and were struck out accord- 
ingly. Mr. Jefferson voted for the clause, but was 
overruled by his colleagues. 

In March of the next year (1785), Mr. King of 
Massachusetts, seconded by Mr. Ellery of Rhode 
Island, proposed the formerly rejected article, with 
this addition : " And that this regulation shall be an 
article of compact, and remain a fundamental prin- 
ciple of the Constitutions between the thirteen ori- 
ginal States and each of the States described in the 
resolve." On this clause, which provided the adequate 
and thorough security, the eight Northern States at 
that time voted affirmatively, and the four Southern 

1 In regard to the various cessions, see Hinsdale's Old North- 
west, chaps, xii., xiii., particularly pp. 227-245 as regards Vir- 
ginia. 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 131 

States negatively. The votes of nine States were not 
yet obtained, and thus the provision was again rejected 
by the Southern States. The perseverance of the 
North held out, and two years afterwards the object 
was attained. It is no derogation from the credit, 
whatever that may be, of drawing the Ordinance, that 
its principles had before been prepared and discussed 
in the form of resolutions. If one should reason in 
that way, what would become of the distinguished 
honor of the author of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence ? There is not a sentiment in that paper which 
had not been voted and resolved in the assemblies and 
other popular bodies in the country over and over 
again. 

But the honorable member has now found out that 
this gentleman, Mr. Dane, was a member of the Hart- 
ford Convention. However uninformed the honorable 
member may be of characters and occurrences at 
the North, it would seem that he has at his elbow on 
this occasion some high-minded and lofty spirit, some 
magnanimous and true-hearted monitor, possessing the 
means of local knowledge, and ready to supply the 
honorable member with everything, down even to for- 
gotten and moth-eaten twopenny pamphlets, which 
may be used to the disadvantage of his own country. 
But as to the Hartford Convention, sir, allow me to 
say that the proceedings of that body seem now to be 
less read and studied in New England than farther 
South. They appear to be looked to, not in New 
England, but elsewhere, for the purpose of seeing how 
far they may serve as a precedent. But they will not 
answer the purpose ; they are quite too tame. The 
latitude in which they originated was too cold. Other 
conventions, of more recent existence, have gone a 



132 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

whole bar's length beyond it. The learned doctors of 
Colleton and Abbeville 1 have pushed their commen- 
taries on the Hartford collect so far that the original 
text-writers are thrown entirely into the shade. I 
have nothing to do, sir, with the Hartford Conven- 
tion. Its journal, which the gentleman has quoted, I 
never read. So far as the honorable member may 
discover in its proceedings a spirit in any degree re- 
sembling that which was avowed and justified in those 
other conventions to which I have alluded, or so far 
as those proceedings can be shown to be disloyal to 
the Constitution, or tending to disunion, so far I shall 
be as ready as any one to bestow on them reprehen- 
sion and censure. 

Having dwelt long on this convention, and other 
occurrences of that day, in the hope, probably (which 
will not be gratified), that I should leave the course 
of this debate to follow him at length in those excur- 
sions, the honorable member returned, and attempted 
another object. He referred to a speech of mine in 
the other house, the same which I had occasion to 
allude to myself the other day ; and has quoted a 
passage or two from it, with a bold though uneasy 
and laboring air of confidence, as if he had detected in 
me an inconsistency. Judging from the gentleman's 
manner, a stranger to the course of the debate and to 
the point in discussion would have imagined, from so 
triumphant a tone, that the honorable member was 

1 Hayne was born in Colleton District, and Calhoun in Abbe- 
ville District, South Carolina. The allusion, however, is prob- 
ably to the anti-tariff meetings in South Carolina, particularly 
one at Walterborough, the capital of Colleton District, on June 
12, 1828, and one at Abbeville Court House, the capital of 
Abbeville District, on September 25, 1828. 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 133 

about to overwhelm me with a manifest contradiction. 
Any one who heard him, and who had not heard what 
I had in fact previously said, must have thought me 
routed and discomfited, as the gentleman had pro- 
mised. Sir, a breath blows all this triumph away. 
There is not the slightest difference in the purport of 
my remarks on the two occasions. What I said here 
on Wednesday is in exact accordance with the opinion 
expressed by me in the other house in 1825. Though 
the gentleman had the metaphysics of Hudibras, 
though he were able 

" to sever and divide 
A hair 'twixt north and northwest side," 1 

he yet could not insert his metaphysical scissors be- 
tween the fair reading of my remarks in 1825 and 
what I said here last week. There is not only no 
contradiction, no difference, but, in truth, too exact 
a similarity, both in thought and language, to be 
entirely in just taste. I had myself quoted the same 
speech ; had recurred to it, and spoke with it open 
before me ; and much of what I said was little more 
than a repetition from it. In order to make finish- 
ing work with this alleged contradiction, permit me 
to recur to the origin of this debate, and review its 
course. This seems expedient, and may be done as 
well now as at any time. 

Well, then, its historv is this : The honorable mem- 
ber from Connecticut moved a resolution which con- 
stitutes the first branch of that which is now before 
us ; that is to say, a resolution instructing the com- 
mittee on public lands to inquire into the expediency 

1 " He could distinguish and divide 

A hair 'twixt south and southwest side." 

Butler's Hudibras, pt. i. canto 1, lines 67, 68. 



134 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

of limiting for a certain period the sales of the public 
lands to such as have heretofore been offered for sale ; 
and whether sundry offices connected with the sales of 
the lands might not be abolished without detriment to 
the public service. In the progress of the discussion 
which arose on this resolution, an honorable member 
from New Hampshire 1 moved to amend the resolu- 
tion so as entirely to reverse its object ; that is, to 
strike it all out, and insert a direction to the commit- 
tee to inquire into the expediency of adopting mea- 
sures to hasten the sales, and extend more rapidly the 
surveys of the lands. 

The honorable member from Maine 2 suggested that 
both those propositions might well enough go for con- 
sideration to the committee ; and in this state of the 
question the member from South Carolina addressed 
the Senate in his first speech. He rose, he said, to 
give us his own free thoughts on the public lands. I 
saw him rise with pleasure, and listened with expec- 
tation, though before he concluded I was filled with 
surprise. Certainly I was never more surprised than 
to find him following up, to the extent he did, the 
sentiments and opinions which the gentleman from 
Missouri had put forth, and which it is known he 
has long entertained. 

I need not repeat at large the general topics of the 
honorable gentleman's speech. When he said yester- 
day that he did not attack the Eastern States, he 
certainly must have forgotten, not only particular 
remarks, but the whole drift and tenor of his speech ; 
unless he means, by not attacking, that he did not 
commence hostilities, but that another had preceded 
him in the attack. He in the first place disapproved 

1 Levi Woodbury. 2 Pcleg- Sprague. 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 135 

of the whole course of the government for forty years 
in regard to its disposition of the public lands ; and 
then, turning northward and eastward, and fancying 
he had found a cause for alleged narrowness and nig- 
gardliness in the " accursed policy " of the tariff, to 
which he represented the people of New England as 
wedded, he went on for a full hour witli remarks the 
whole scope of which was to exhibit the results of this 
policy in feelings and in measures unfavorable to the 
West. I thought his opinions unfounded and errone- 
ous as to the general course of the government, and 
ventured to reply to them. 

The gentleman had remarked on the analogy of 
other cases, and quoted the conduct of European gov- 
ernments towards their own subjects settling on this 
continent as in point, to show that we had been harsh, 
and rigid in selling, when we should have given the 
public lands to settlers without price. I thought the 
honorable member had suffered his judgment to be 
betrayed by a false analogy ; that he was struck with, 
an appearance of resemblance where there was no 
real similitude. I think so still. The first settlers of 
North America were enterprising spirits, engaged in 
private adventure, or fleeing from tyranny at home. 
When arrived here, they were forgotten by the mother 
country, or remembered only to be oppressed. Car- 
ried away again by the appearance of analogy, or 
struck with the eloquence of the passage, the honora- 
ble member yesterday observed that the conduct of 
government toward the Western emigrants, or my re- 
presentation of it, brought to his mind a celebrated 
speech in the British Parliament. It was, sir, the 
speech of Colonel Barre. On the question of the 



136 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

Stamp Act, 1 or tea tax, I forget which, Colonel Barre 
had heard a member on the Treasury bench argue 
that the people of the United States, being British 
colonists, planted by the maternal care, nourished by 
the indulgence and protected by the arms of England, 
would not grudge their mite to relieve the mother 
country from the heavy burden under which she 
groaned. The language of Colonel Barre in reply 
to this was : " They planted by your care ? Your op- 
pression planted them in America. They fled from 
your tyranny, and grew by your neglect of them. So 
soon as you began to care for them, you showed your 
care by sending persons to spy out their liberties, mis- 
represent their character, prey upon them, and eat out 
their substance." 

And how does the honorable gentleman mean to 
maintain that language like this is applicable to the 
conduct of the government of the United States 
toward the Western emigrants, or to any represen- 
tation given by me of that conduct ? Were the set- 
tlers in the West driven thither by our oppression ? 
Have they flourished only by our neglect of them ? 
Has the government done nothing but prey upon 
them and eat out their substance? Sir, this fervid 
eloquence of the British speaker, just when and where 
it was uttered, and fit to remain an exercise for the 
schools, is not a little out of place when it is brought 
thence to be applied here to the conduct of our own 

1 This was the speech of Colonel Isaac Barre" in reply to Gren- 
ville during the passage of the Stamp Act {Parliamentary His- 
tory of England, xvi. 38). In this speech occurred the expression 
"sons of liberty," which was speedily adopted by the famous 
society of that name. Barrd was in speech as potent for invec- 
tive as was Junius with his pen. See also Hayne's Speech (pp. 
27 n., 28 n.). 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 137 

country toward her own citizens. From America to 
England, it may be true; from Americans to their 
own government, it would be strange language. Let 
us leave it to be recited and declaimed by our boys 
against a foreign nation; not introduce it here, to 
recite and declaim ourselves against our own. 

But I come to the point of the alleged contradic- 
tion. In my remarks on Wednesday I contended that 
we could not give away gratuitously all the public 
lands ; that we held them in trust ; that the govern- 
ment had solemnly pledged itself to dispose of them 
as a common fund for the common benefit, and to sell 
and settle them as its discretion should dictate. Now, 
sir, what contradiction does the gentleman find to this 
sentiment in the speech of 1825 ? He quotes me as 
having then said that we ought not to hug these lands 
as a very great treasure. Very well, sir, supposing 
me to be accurately reported in that expression, what 
is the contradiction ? I have not now said that we 
should hug these lands as a favorite source of pecu- 
niary income. No such thing. It is not my view. 
What I have said, and what I do say, is, that they are 
a common fund, to be disposed of for the common 
benefit, to be sold at low prices for the accommoda- 
tion of settlers, keeping the object of settling the lands 
as much in view as that of raising money from them. 
This I say now, and this I have always said. Is this 
hugging them as a favorite treasure? Is there no 
difference between hugging and hoarding this fund, 
on the one hand, as a great treasure, and on the other 
of disposing of it at low prices, placing the proceeds 
in the general treasury of the Union ? My opinion 
is that as much is to be made of the land as fairly and 
reasonably may be, selling it all the while at such 



138 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

rates as to give the fullest effect to settlement. 1 This 
is not giving it all away to the States, as the gentle- 
man would propose ; nor is it hugging the fund closely 
and tenaciously, as a favorite treasure ; but it is, in 
my judgment, a just and wise policy, perfectly accord- 
ing with all the various duties which rest on govern- 
ment. So much for my contradiction. And what is 
it? Where is the ground of the gentleman's triumph ? 
What inconsistency in word or doctrine has he been 
able to detect? Sir, if this be a sample of that dis- 
comfiture with which the honorable gentleman threat- 
ened me, commend me to the word " discomfiture ' 
for the rest of my life. 

But, after all, this is not the point of the debate, 
and I must now bring the gentleman back to that 
which is the point. 

The real question between me and him is, Has the 
doctrine been advanced at the South or at the East 
that the population of the West should be retarded, 
or at least need not be hastened, on account of its 
effect to drain off the people from the Atlantic States ? 
Is this doctrine, as has been alleged, of Eastern origin ? 
That is the question. Has the gentleman found any- 
thing by which he can make good his accusation ? I 
submit to the Senate that he has entirely failed ; and, 
as far as this debate has shown, the only person who 
has advanced such sentiments is a gentleman from 
South Carolina, and a friend to the honorable member 

1 The whole subject of the public lauds is admirably covered 
by Worthington C. Ford in Lalor's Cyclopcedia of Political Sci- 
ence, iii. 460 et seq. See, as well, Benton's Abridgment of Debates, 
the Reports of the General Land Office and of the Public Land 
Commission; and particularly the latter's comprehensive work, 
The Public Domain, prepared by Thomas Donaldson (1884), and 
American State Papers (volumes relating to public lands). 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 141 

himself. The honorable gentleman has given no answer 
to this ; there is none which can be given. This sim- 
ple fact, while it requires no comment to enforce it, 
defies all argument to refute it. I could refer to the 
speeches of another Southern gentleman 1 in years 
before, of the same general character and to the same 
effect as that which has been quoted ; but I will not 
consume the time of the Senate by the reading of 
them. 

So, then, sir, New England is guiltless of the policy 
of retarding Western population, and of all envy and 
jealousy of the growth of the new States. Whatever 
there be of that policy in the country, no part of it 
is hers. If it has a local habitation, the honorable 
member has probably seen by this time where to look 
for it ; and if it now has received a name, he has 
himself christened it. 

We approach at length, sir, to a more important 
part of the honorable gentleman's observations. Since 
it does not accord with my views of justice and policy 
to give away the public lands altogether, as a mere 
matter of gratuity, I am asked by the honorable gen- 
tleman on what ground it is that I consent to vote 
them away in particular instances. How, he inquires, 
do I reconcile with these professed sentiments my 
support of measures appropriating portions of the 
lands to particular roads, particular canals, particu- 
lar rivers, and particular institutions of education 
in the West ? This leads, sir, to the real and wide 
difference in political opinion between the honorable 

1 Probably a reference to George McDuffie, afterward gov- 
ernor of South Carolina and eulogist of Mr. Hayne. In 1825 
he made a speech from which Webster quotes in his first speech 
(of January 20). 



138 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

gentleman and myself. On my part, I look upon all 
these objects as connected with the common good, 
fairly embraced in its object and its terms ; he, on 
the contrary, deems them all, if good at all, only local 
good. This is our difference. The interrogatory, 
which he proceeded to put, at once explains this dif- 
ference. " What interest," asks he, " has South Car- 
olina in a canal in Ohio ? ' Sir, this very question is 
full of significance. It develops the gentleman's whole 
political system, and its answer expounds mine. Here 
we differ. I look upon a road over the Alleghanies, 
a canal round the falls of the Ohio, or a canal or 
railway from the Atlantic to the western waters, as 
being an object large and extensive enough to be 
fairly said to be for the common benefit. The gentle- 
man thinks otherwise, and this is the key to his con- 
struction of the powers of the government. He may 
well ask what interest has South Carolina in a canal 
in Ohio. On his system, it is true, she has no inter- 
est. On that system, Ohio and Carolina are differ- 
ent Governments and different countries, connected 
here, it is true, by some slight and ill-defined bond of 
union, but in all main respects separate and diverse. 
On that system, Carolina has no more interest in a 
canal in Ohio than in Mexico. The gentleman, there- 
fore, only follows out his own principles ; he does no 
more than arrive at the natural conclusions of his own 
doctrines ; he only announces the true results of that 
creed which he has adopted himself, and would per- 
suade others to adopt, when he thus declares that 
South Carolina has no interest in a public work in 

Ohio. 

Sir, we narrow-minded people of New England do 
not reason thus. Our notion of things is entirely 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 141 

different. We look upon the States, not as separated, 
but as united. We love to dwell on that union, and 
on the mutual happiness which it has so much pro- 
moted, and the common renown which it has so greatly 
contributed to acquire. In our contemplation, Caro- 
lina and Ohio are parts of the same country ; States 
united under the same general government, having 
interests common, associated, intermingled. In what- 
ever is within the proper sphere of the constitutional 
power of this government, we look upon the States 
as one. We do not impose geographical limits to our 
patriotic feeling or regard ; we do not follow rivers 
and mountains and lines of latitude to find boundaries 
be}^ond which public improvements do not benefit 
us. We, who come here as agents and representatives 
of these narrow-minded and selfish men of New Eng- 
land, consider ourselves as bound to regard with an 
equal eye the good of the whole, in whatever is within 
our power of legislation. Sir, if a railroad or canal, 
beginning in South Carolina and ending in South 
Carolina, appeared to me to be of national importance 
and national magnitude, believing, as I do, that the 
power of government extends to the encouragement of 
works of that description, if I were to stand up here 
and ask, What interest has Massachusetts in a rail- 
road in South Carolina? I should not be willing to 
face my constituents. These same narrow-minded men 
would tell me that they had sent me to act for the 
whole country, and that one who possessed too little 
comprehension, either of intellect or feeling, one who 
was not large enough, both in mind and in heart, to 
embrace the whole, was not fit to be intrusted with 
the interest of any part. 

Sir, I do not desire to enlarge the powers of the 



142 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

government by unjustifiable construction, nor to exer- 
cise any not within a fair interpretation. But when 
it is believed that a power does exist, then it is, in 
my judgment, to be exercised for the general benefit 
of the whole. So far as respects the exercise of such 
a power, the States are one. It was the very object 
of the Constitution to create unity of interests to the 
extent of the powers of the general government. In 
war and peace we are one ; in commerce one ; be- 
cause the authority of the general government reaches 
to war and peace, and to the regulation of commerce. 
I have never seen any more difficulty in erecting 
lighthouses on the lakes than on the ocean ; in im- 
proving the harbors of inland seas than if they were 
within the ebb and flow of the tide ; or in removing 
obstructions in the vast streams of the West, more 
than in any work to facilitate commerce on the At- 
lantic coast. If there be any power for one, there is 
power also for the other ; and they are all and equally 
for the common good of the country. 

There are other objects apparently more local, or 
the benefit of which is less general, towards which, 
nevertheless, I have concurred with others to give aid 
by donations of land. It is proposed to construct a 
road in or through one of the new States in which 
this government possesses large quantities of land. 
Have the United States no right, or, as a great and 
untaxed proprietor, are they under no obligation to 
contribute to an object thus calculated to promote the 
common good of all the proprietors, themselves in- 
cluded ? And even with respect to education, which 
is the extreme case, let the question be considered. 
In the first place, as we have seen, it was made matter 
of compact with these States that they should do 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 143 

their part to promote education. In the next place, 
our whole system of land laws proceeds on the idea 
that education is for the common good ; 1 because, in 
every division, a certain portion is uniformly reserved 
and appropriated for the use of schools. And, finally, 
have not these new States singularly strong claims, 
founded on the ground already stated, that the gov- 
ernment is a great untaxed j)roprietor in the own- 
ership of the soil ? It is a consideration of great 
importance that probably there is in no part of the 
country or of the world so great a call for the means of 
education as in those new States, owing to the vast 
number of persons within those ages in which education 
and instruction are usually received, if received at all. 
This is the natural consequence of recency of settle- 
ment and rapid increase. The census of these States 
shows how great a proportion of the whole population 
occupies the classes between infancy and manhood. 
These are the wide fields, and here is the deep and 
quick soil for the seeds of knowledge and virtue ; and 
this is the favored season, the springtime for sowing 
them. Let them be disseminated without stint. Let 
them be scattered with a bountiful hand broadcast. 
Whatever the government can fairly do towards these 
objects, in my opinion, ought to be done. 

These, sir, are the grounds, succinctly stated, on 
which my votes for grants of lands for particular 
objects rest ; while I maintain at the same time that 
it is all a common fund, for the common benefit. And 
reasons like these, I presume, have influenced the 
votes of other gentlemen from New England. Those 

1 See G. W. Knight's " History and Management of Land 
granted for Education " (American Historical Association Papers, 
vol. i. no. 3, 1884), which contains a full list of books on this topic. 



144 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

who have a different view of the powers of the gov- 
ernment, of course, come to different conclusions on 
these as on other questions. I observed, when speak- 
ing on this subject before, that if we looked to any 
measure, whether for a road, a canal, or anything else' 
intended for the improvement of the West, it would 
be found that, if the New England ayes were struck 
out of the list of votes, the Southern noes would al- 
ways have rejected the measure. The truth of this 
has not been denied and cannot be denied. In stat- 
ing this I thought it just to ascribe it to the constitu- 
tional scruples of the South, rather than to any other 
less favorable or less charitable cause. But no sooner 
had I done this than the honorable gentleman asks if 
I reproach him and his friends with their constitu- 
tional scruples? Sir, I reproach nobody. I stated 
a fact, and gave the most respectful reason for it that 
occurred to me. The gentleman cannot deny the fact ; 
he may, if he choose, disclaim the reason. It is not 
long since I had occasion, in presenting a petition 
from his own State, 1 to account for its being intrusted 
to my hands, by saying that the constitutional opin- 
ions of the gentleman and his worthy colleague pre- 
vented them from supporting it. Sir, did I state this 
as a matter of reproach? Far from it. Did I at- 
tempt to find any other cause than an honest one for 
these scruples? Sir, I did not. It did not become 
me to doubt or to insinuate that the gentleman had 
either changed his sentiments, or that he had made 
up a set of constitutional opinions accommodated to 

1 From the South Carolina Canal and Railroad Company, pre- 
sented January 18, 1830, and asking- Congress to authorize a 
subscription on the part of government of 25,000 shares of the 
capital stock. 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 145 

any particular combination of political occurrences. 
Had I done so, I should have felt that, while I was 
entitled to little credit in thus questioning other peo- 
ple's motives, I justified the whole world in suspecting 
my own. But how has the gentleman returned this 
respect for others' opinions? His own candor and 
justice, — how have they been exhibited towards the 
motives of others while he has been at so much pains 
to maintain what nobody has disputed, — the purity 
of his own? Why, sir, he has asked ivhen, and how, 
and why New England votes were found going for 
measures favorable to the West ; he has demanded 
to be informed whether all this did not begin in 1825, 
and while the election of President was still pending. 
Sir, to these questions retort would be justified ; 
and it is both cogent and at hand. Nevertheless, I 
will answer the inquiry, not by retort, but by facts. 
I will tell the gentleman when, and how, and why 
New England has supported measures favorable to 
the West. I have already referred to the early his- 
tory of the government, to the first acquisition of the 
lands, to the original laws for disposing of them, and 
for governing the territories where they lie ; and have 
shown the influence of New England men and New 
England principles in all these leading measures. I 
should not be pardoned were I to go over that ground 
a,o;ain. Coming to more recent times, and to mea- 
sures of a less general character, I have endeavored 
to prove that everything of this kind, designed for 
Western improvement, has depended on the votes of 
New England ; all this is true beyond the power of 
contradiction. And now, sir, there are two measures 
to which I will refer, not so ancient as to belong to 
the early history of the public lands, and not so recent 



146 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

as to be on this side of the period when the gentleman 
charitably imagines a new direction may have been 
given to New England feeling and New England 
votes. These measures, and the New England votes 
in support of them, may be taken as samples and 
specimens of all the rest. 

In 1820 (observe, Mr. President, in 1820), the 
people of the West besought Congress for a reduction 
in the price of lands. In favor of that reduction, 
New England, with a delegation of forty members in 
the other house, gave thirty-three votes, and one only 
against it. The four Southern States, with more than 
fifty members, gave thirty-two votes for it and seven 
against it. Again, in 1821 (observe again, sir, the 
time), the law passed for the relief of the purchasers of 
the public lands. This was a measure of vital impor- 
tance to the West, and more especially to the South- 
west. It authorized the relinquishment of contracts 
for lands which had been entered into at high prices, 
and a reduction in other cases of not less than thirty- 
seven and a half per cent, on the purchase-money. 
Many millions of dollars — six or seven, I believe, 
probably much more — were relinquished by this law. 
On this bill, New England, with her forty members, 
gave more affirmative votes than the four Southern 
States, with their fifty-two or fifty-three members. 
These two are far the most important general mea- 
sures respecting the public lands which have been 
adopted within the last twenty years. They took 
place in 1820 and 1821. That is the time when. 1 

1 In 1821 memorials were presented for the relief of settlers. 
At a minimum, set in 1800, of two dollars an acre, of which the 
whole sum was to be paid within four years, there was to be a 
forfeiture of all payments in case of delinquency. Owing to 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 147 

As to the manner how, the gentleman already sees 
that it was by voting in solid column for the required 
relief. And, lastly, as to the cause why, I tell the 
gentleman it was because the members from New 
England thought the measures just and salutary ; 
because they entertained towards the West neither 
envy, hatred, nor malice ; because they deemed it 
becoming them, as just and enlightened men, to meet 
the exigency which had arisen in the West with the 
appropriate measure of relief ; because they felt it 
due to their own characters, and the characters of 
their New England predecessors in this government, 
to act towards the new States in the spirit of a liberal, 
patronizing, magnanimous policy. So much, sir, for 
the cause why ; and I hope that by this time, sir, the 
honorable gentleman is satisfied ; if not, I do not 
know when, or how, or why he ever will be. 

Having recurred to these two important measures 
in answer to the gentleman's inquiries, I must now beg 
permission to go back to a period somewhat earlier, 
for the purpose of still further showing how much, or 
rather how little, reason there is for the gentleman's 
insinuation that political hopes or fears, or party asso- 
ciations, were the grounds of these New England votes. 
And after what has been said, I hope it may be for- 
given me if I allude to some political opinions and 
votes of my own, of very little public importance cer- 
tainly, but which, from the time at which they were 

speculations, in which small payments only had been made, 
depression and then failures ensued. More than twenty-three 
millions of dollars were owed the government. On this debt 
extensions had been made, and in 1820 the minimum price was 
reduced to $1.25 an acre, and the credit changed to a cash sys- 
tem. Settlers were encouraged to buy of government at this 
reduced price. 



148 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

given and expressed, may pass for good witnesses on 
this occasion. 

This government, Mr. President, from its origin to 
the peace of 1815, had been too much engrossed with 
various other important concerns to be able to turn its 
thoughts inward, and look to the development of its 
vast internal resources. In the early part of Presi- 
dent Washington's administration, it was fully occu- 
pied with completing its own organization, providing 
for the public debt, defending the frontiers, and main- 
taining domestic peace. Before the termination of 
that administration, the fires of the French Revolu- 
tion blazed forth, as from a new-opened volcano, and 
the whole breadth of the ocean did not secure us from 
its effects. The smoke and the cinders reached us, 
though not the burning lava. Difficult and agitating 
questions, embarrassing to government and dividing 
public opinion, sprung out of the new state of our 
foreign relations, and were succeeded by others, and 
yet again by others, equally embarrassing and equally 
exciting division and discord, through the long series 
of twenty years, till they finally issued in the war 
with England. Down to the close of that war, no 
distinct, marked, and deliberate attention had been 
given, or could have been given, to the internal condi- 
tion of the country, its capacities of improvement, or 
the constitutional power of the government in regard 
to objects connected with such improvement. 

The peace, Mr. President, brought about an entirely 
new and a most interesting state of things ; it opened 
to us other prospects and suggested other duties. We 
ourselves were changed, and the whole world was 
changed. The pacification of Europe, after June, 
1815, assumed a firm and permanent aspect. The 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 149 

nations evidently manifested that they were disposed 
for peace. Some agitation of the waves might be ex- 
pected even after the storm had subsided, but the tend- 
ency was, strongly and rapidly, toward settled repose. 

It so happened, sir, that I was at that time a mem- 
ber of Congress, and, like others, naturally turned my 
thoughts to the contemplation of the recently altered 
condition of the country and of the world. It ap- 
peared plainly enough to me, as well as to wiser and 
more experienced men, that the policy of the govern- 
ment would naturally take a start in a new direction ; 
because new directions would necessarily be given to 
the pursuits and occupations of the people. We had 
pushed our commerce far and fast, under the advan- 
tage of a neutral flag. But there were now no longer 
flags, either neutral or belligerent. The harvest of 
neutrality had been great, but we had gathered it all. 
With the peace of Europe, it was obvious there would 
spring up in her circle of nations a revived and invig- 
orated spirit of trade, and a new activity in all the 
business and objects of civilized life. Hereafter, our 
commercial gains were to be earned only by success 
in a close and intense competition. Other nations 
would produce for themselves, and carry for them- 
selves, and manufacture for themselves, to the full 
extent of their abilities. The crops of our plains 
would no longer sustain European armies, nor our 
ships longer supply those whom war had rendered 
unable to supply themselves. It was obvious that, 
under these circumstances, the country would begin 
to survey itself, and to estimate its own capacity of 
improvement. 

And this improvement, — how was it to be accom- 
plished, and who was to accomplish it ? We were ten 



150 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

or twelve millions of people, spread over almost half 
a world. We were more than twenty States, some 
stretching along the same seaboard, some along the 
same line of inland frontier, and others on opposite 
banks of the same vast rivers. Two considerations at 
once presented themselves with great force in look- 
ing at this state of things. One was, that that great 
branch of improvement which consisted in furnishing 
new facilities of intercourse necessarily ran into dif- 
ferent States in every leading instance, and would 
benefit the citizens of all such States. No one State, 
therefore, in such cases, would assume the whole ex- 
pense, nor was the cooperation of several States to be 
expected. Take the instance of the Delaware break- 
water. 1 It will cost several millions of money. Would 
Pennsylvania alone ever have constructed it? Cer- 
tainly never, w r hile this Union lasts, because it is 
not for her sole benefit. Would Pennsylvania, New 
Jersey, and Delaware have united to accomplish it at 
their joint expense ? Certainly not, for the same rea- 
son. It could not be done, therefore, but by the gen- 
eral government. The same may be said of the large 
inland undertakings, except that, in them, government, 
instead of bearing the whole expense, cooperates with 
others who bear a part. The other consideration is 
that the United States have the means. They enjoy 
the revenues derived from commerce, and the States 
have no abundant and easy sources of public income. 
The custom-houses fill the general treasury, while the 

1 In the first report on plans for a harbor near the mouth of 
Delaware Bay, made on February 2, 1829, by a commission 
appointed by Congress, Cape Henlopen was selected as the site 
of a breakwater. Work was begun in 1829, under the direction 
of William Strickland. On November 4, 1869, the work was 
finished according to the original project. 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 151 

States have scanty resources, except by resort to heavy 

direct taxes. 

Under this view of things, I thought it necessary to 
settle, at least for myself, some definite notions with 
respect to the powers of the government in regard to 
internal affairs. It may not savor too much of self- 
commendation to remark that, with this object, I con- 
sidered the Constitution, its judicial construction, its 
contemporaneous exposition, and the whole history of 
the legislation of Congress under it ; and I arrived at 
the conclusion that government had power to accom- 
plish sundry objects, or aid in their accomplishment, 
which are now commonly spoken of as internal 
improvements. That conclusion, sir, may have been 
right, or it may have been wrong. I am not about 
to argue the grounds of it at large. I say only that it 
was adopted and acted on even so early as in 181b. 
Yes, Mr. President, I made up my opinion, and deter- 
mined on my intended course of political conduction 
these subjects, in the Fourteenth Congress, in 1816 
And now, Mr. President, I have further to say that 1 
made up these opinions, and entered on this course of 
political conduct, Teucro duce. 1 Yes, sir, I pursued 
i " Nil desperandum Teucro duce et auspice Teucro " (no- 
thing is to be despaired of under the leadership and auspices ol 
Teucer) is from Horace's Odes, book i. carmen vn. hue 27. 
Gales's transcript from the shorthand report reads as follows: 
« I made up my mind on that subject, te duce. Mrs Jared 
Sparks, daughter of Senator Silsbee, Mr. Webster s colleague, 
in a communication to the Boston Transcript of June 5, 188. 
says that Mr. Calhoun challenged the expression te duce and 
that Mr. Webster denied any intentional allusion to the chair, 
and affirmed that his expression was Teucro duce. To whom he 
did allude is uncertain. Teucer, a famous archer, was the son ot 
Telamon and step-brother of A jax. Regarding Mr. Calhoun s 
interruption see the note on p. 159. 



152 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

in all this a South Carolina track on the doctrines of 
internal improvement. South Carolina, as she was 
then represented in the other house, set forth in 1816 
under a fresh and leading breeze, and I was among 
the followers. But if my leader sees new lights and 
turns a sharp corner, unless I see new lights also, I 
keep straight on in the same path. I repeat that 
leading gentlemen from South Carolina were first 
and foremost in behalf of the doctrines of internal 
improvements, when those doctrines came first to be 
considered and acted upon in Congress. The debate 
on the bank question, on the tariff of 1816, and on 
the direct tax will show who was who, and what was 
what, at that time. 

The tariff of 1816 (one of the plain cases of oppres- 
sion and usurpation, from which, if the government 
does not recede, individual States may justly secede 
from the government) is, sir, in truth, a South Caro- 
lina tariff, supported by South Carolina votes. But 
for those votes it could not have passed in the form 
in which it did pass ; whereas, if it had depended on 
Massachusetts votes, it would have been lost. Does 
not the honorable gentleman well know all this? 
There are certainly those who do, full well, know it 
all. I do not say this to reproach South Carolina. I 
only state the fact ; and I think it will appear to be 
true that, among the earliest and boldest advocates 
of the tariff, as a measure of protection, and on the 
express ground of protection, were leading gentlemen 
of South Carolina in Congress. I did not then, and 
cannot now, understand their language in any other 
sense. While this tariff of 1816 was under discussion 
in the House of Representatives, an honorable gen- 
tleman from Georgia, 1 now of this house, moved to 

1 John Forsyth. 



* SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 153 

reduce the proposed duty on cotton. He failed by 
four votes, South Carolina giving three votes (enough 
to have turned the scale) against his motion. The 
act, sir, then passed, and received on its passage the 
support of a majority of the Eepresentatives of South 
Carolina present and voting. This act is the first in 
the order of those now denounced as plain usurpations. 
We see it daily in the list, by the side of those of 1824 
and 1828, as a case of manifest oppression, justifying 
disunion. I put it home to the honorable member 
from South Carolina, that his own State was not only 
" art and part" in this measure, but the causa cau- 
sans. 1 Without her aid, this seminal principle of mis- 
chief, this root of Upas, could not have been planted. 
I have already said, and it is true, that this act pro- 
ceeded on the ground of protection. It interfered 
directly with existing interests of great value and 
amount. It cut up the Calcutta cotton trade by the 
roots, but it passed nevertheless, and it passed on the 
principle of protecting manufactures, on the principle 
against free trade, on the principle opposed to that 
which lets us alone? 

Such, Mr. President, were the opinions of impor- 
tant and leading gentlemen from South Carolina on 
the subject of internal improvement in 1816. I went 
out of Congress the next year, and, returning again 
in 1823, thought I found South Carolina where I had 
left her. I really supposed that all things remained 
as they were, and that the South Carolina doctrine 

i The real effective cause. (Stroud's Judicial Dictionary.) 
And so the cause of the thing causing is the cause of the effect. 
See Massachusetts "Reports, 4 Gray, 398. 

2 This allusion to the laissez-faire theory could not have been 
so obvious then as now. 



154 THE GREAT DEBATE. * 

of internal improvements would be defended by the 
same eloquent voices, and the same strong arms, as 
formerly. In the lapse of these six years, it is true, 
political associations had assumed a new aspect and 
new divisions. A strong party had arisen in the 
South hostile to the doctrine of internal improve- 
ments. Anti-consolidation was the flag under which 
tli is party fought ; and its supporters inveighed against 
internal improvements, much after the manner in 
which the honorable gentleman has now inveighed 
against them, as part and parcel of the system of 
consolidation. Whether this party arose in South 
Carolina itself, or in the neighborhood, is more than 
I know. I think the latter. However that may have 
been, there were those found in South Carolina ready 
to make war upon it, and who did make intrepid war 
upon it. Names being regarded as things in such 
controversies, they bestowed on the anti-improvement 
gentlemen the appellation of Radicals. Yes, sir, the 
appellation of Radicals, as a term of distinction ap- 
plicable and applied to those who denied the liberal 
doctrines of internal improvement, originated, accord- 
ing to the best of my recollection, somewhere between 
North Carolina and Georgia. Well, sir, these mis- 
chievous Radicals were to be put down, and the strong 
arm of South Carolina was stretched out to put them 
down. About this time I returned to Congress. The 
battle with the Radicals had been fought, and our 
South Carolina champions of the doctrines of internal 
improvement had nobly maintained their ground, and 
were understood to have achieved a victory. We 
looked upon them as conquerors. They had driven 
back the enemy with discomfiture, — a thing, by the 
way, sir, which is not always performed when it is 
promised. 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 155 

A gentleman to whom I have already referred in 
this debate had come into Congress, during my ab- 
sence from it, from South Carolina, and had brought 
with him a high reputation for ability. He came 
from a school with which we had been acquainted, 
et noscitur a sociis. 1 I hold in my hand, sir, a 
printed speech of this distinguished gentleman 2 on 
" Internal Improvements," delivered about the period 
to which I now refer, and printed with a few introduc- 
tory remarks upon consolidation, in which, sir, I think 
he quite consolidated the arguments of his opponents, 
the Radicals, if to crush be to consolidate. I give 
you a short but significant quotation from these re- 
marks. He is speaking of a pamphlet then recently 
published, entitled " Consolidation ; " and, having al- 
luded to the question of renewing the charter of the 
former Bank of the United States, he says : " More- 
over, in the early history of parties, and when Mr. 
Crawford advocated a renewal of the old charter, it 
was considered a Federal measure ; which internal 
improvements never was, as this author erroneously 
states. This latter measure originated, in the admin- 
istration of Mr. Jefferson, with the appropriation for 
the Cumberland Road, and was first proposed, as a 
system, by Mr. Calhoun, and carried through the 
House of Representatives by a large majority of the 
Republicans, including almost every one of the lead- 
ing men who carried us through the late war." 

So, then, internal improvement 3 is not one of the 
Federal heresies. One paragraph more, sir : — 

i Colloquially, " And he is known by the company he keeps." 

2 Mr. McDuffie. See page 139. 

3 The policy of internal improvements, the espousal of which 
contributed largely to the overturn of the administration of the 



156 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

" The author in question, not content with denoun- 
cing as Federalists General Jackson, Mr. Adams, Mr. 
Calhoun, and the majority of the South Carolina dele- 
gation in Congress, modestly extends the denuncia- 
tion to Mr. Monroe and the v/hole Republican party. 
Here are his words : ' During the administration of 
Mr. Monroe, much had passed which the Republican 
party would be glad to approve if they could ! ! But 
the principal feature, and that which has chiefly eli- 
cited these observations, is the renewal of the system 
of internal improvements.' Now this measure 
was adopted by a vote of 115 to 86 of a Republican 
Congress, and sanctioned by a Republican President. 
Who, then, is this author who assumes the high pre- 
rogative of denouncing, in the name of the Republican 
party, the Republican administration of the country? 
A denunciation including within its sweep Calhoun, 
Lowndes, and Cheves, — men who will be regarded 
as the brightest ornaments of South Carolina, and the 
strongest pillars of the Rejmblican party, as long as 
the late war shall be remembered, and talents and 
patriotism shall be regarded as the proper objects of 
the admiration and gratitude of a free people ! ! ' 

Such are the opinions, sir, which were maintained 
by South Carolina gentlemen in the House of Repre- 
sentatives, on the subject of internal improvements, 
when I took my seat there as a member from Mas- 
sachusetts in 1823. But this is not all. We had a 
bill before us, and passed it in that House, entitled 
" An act to procure the necessary surveys, plans, and 
estimates upon the subject of roads and canals." It 
authorized the President to cause surveys and esti- 

second Adams, is concisely treated by Alexander Johnston in an 
article in Lalor's Cyclopedia of Political Science, ii. 568. 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 157 

mates to be made of the routes of such roads and 
canals as he might deem of national importance in a 
commercial or military point of view, or for the trans- 
portation of the mail, and appropriated thirty thou- 
sand dollars out of the treasury to defray the expense 
This act, though preliminary in its nature, covered 
the whole ground. It took for granted the complete 
power of internal improvement, as far as any ot its 
advocates had ever contended for it. Having passed 
the other house, the bill came up to the Senate, 
and was here considered and debated in April, 1S24. 
The honorable member from South Carolina was a 
member of the Senate at that time. While the lull 
was under consideration here, a motion was made to 
add the following proviso: "Provided, That nothing 
herein contained shall be construed to affirm or admit 
a power in Congress, on their own authority, to make 
roads or canals within any of the States of the Union. 
The yeas and nays were taken on this proviso, and 
the honorable member voted in the negative! ine 

proviso failed. 

A motion was then made to add this proviso, viz.: 
« Provided, That the faith of the United States is 
hereby pledged that no money shall ever be expended 
for roads or canals, except it shall be among the 
several States, and in the same proportion as direct 
taxes are laid and assessed by the provisions of the 
Constitution." The honorable member voted against 
this proviso also, and it failed. The bill was then 
put on its passage, and the honorable member voted 
for it, and it passed and became a law. _ _ _ 

Now, it strikes me, sir, that there is no maintaining 
these votes but upon the power of internal improve- 
ment, in its broadest sense. In truth, these bills for 



158 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

surveys and estimates have always been considered as 
test questions ; they show who is for and who against 
internal improvement. This law itself went the whole 
length, and assumed the full and complete power. 
The gentleman's votes sustained that power in every 
form in which the various propositions to amend pre- 
sented it. He went for the entire and unrestrained 
authority, without consulting the States, and without 
agreeing to any proportionate distribution. And now 
suffer me to remind you, Mr. President, that it is this 
very same power, thus sanctioned in every form by 
the gentleman's own opinion, which is so plain and 
manifest a usurpation that the State of South Caro- 
lina is supposed to be justified in refusing submission 
to any laws carrying the power into effect. Truly, 
sir, is not this a little too hard? May we not crave 
some mercy, under favor and protection of the gentle- 
man's own authority? Admitting that a road or a 
canal must be written down flat usurpation as was 
ever committed, may we find no mitigation in our 
respect for his place, and his vote, as one that knows 
the law ? 

The tariff, which South Carolina had an efficient 
hand in establishing in 1816, and this asserted power 
of internal improvement advanced by her in the same 
year, and, as we have seen, approved and sanctioned 
by her representatives in 1824, — these two measures 
are the great grounds on which she is now thought to 
be justified in breaking up the Union, if she sees fit 
to break it up ! t 

I may now safely say, I think, that we have had 
the authority of leading and distinguished gentlemen 
from South Carolina in support of the doctrine of 
internal improvement. I repeat that, up to 1824, I, 



SPEECH OE MR. WEBSTER. 159 

for one, f allowed South Carolina ; but when that star 
in its ascension veered off in an unexpected direction, 
I relied on its light no longer. [Here the Vice-Presi- 
dent said : " Does the chair understand the gentle- 
man from Massachusetts to say that the person now 
occupying the chair of the Senate has changed his 
opinions on the subject of internal improvements?"] l 
From nothing ever said to me, sir, have I had rea- 
son to know of any change in the opinions of the per- 
son filling the chair of the Senate. If such change 
has taken place, I regret it. I speak generally of the 
State of South Carolina. Individuals we know there 
are who hold opinions favorable to the power. An 
application for its exercise in behalf of a public work 
in South Carolina itself is now pending, I believe, in 
the other house, presented by members from that 
State. 

I have thus, sir, perhaps not without some tedious- 
ness of detail, shown, if I am in error on the subjects 
of internal improvement, how and in what company 
I fell into that error. If I am wrong, it is apparent 
who misled me. 

I go to other remarks of the honorable member ; 
and I have to complain of an entire misapprehension 
of what I said on the subject of the national debt, 
though I can hardly perceive how any one could mis- 

1 This interruption on the part of Mr. Calhoun was unparlia- 
mentary. The Vice-President's functions are to enforce rules 
and preserve order, and to vote in case of a tie, but he may not 
join in debate. Senator Forsyth, who was interrupted by the 
chair on January 25, 1832, when the confirmation of Van Buren 
as minister to England was under consideration, rebuked Mr. 
Calhoun. Since that occurrence, there has been no interference 
with the discussions of the Senate on the part of the presiding 
officer. See also note on page 151. 



160 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

understand me. What I said was, not that I wished 
to put off the payment of the debt, but, on the con- 
trary, that I had always voted for every measure for 
its reduction as uniformly as the gentleman himself. 
He seems to claim the exclusive merit of a disposi- 
tion to reduce the public charge. I do not allow it 
to him. As a debt, I was — I am for paying it, be- 
cause it is a charge on our finances, and on the indus- 
try of the country. But I observed that I thought I 
perceived a morbid fervor on that subject, an exces- 
sive anxiety to pay off the debt, not so much because 
it is a debt simply, as because, while it lasts, it fur- 
nishes one objection to disunion. It is, while it con- 
tinues, a tie of common interest. I did not impute 
such motives to the honorable member himself, but 
that there is such a feeling in existence I have not a 
particle of doubt. The most I said was that, if one 
effect of the debt was to strengthen our Union, that 
effect itself was not regretted by me, however much 
others might regret it. The gentleman has not seen 
how to reply to this otherwise than by supposing me 
to have advanced the doctrine that a national debt is 
a national blessing. Others, I must hope, will find 
much less difficulty in understanding me. I distinctly 
and pointedly cautioned the honorable member not to 
understand me as expressing an opinion favorable to 
the continuance of the debt. I repeated this caution, 
and repeated it more than once ; but it was thrown 
away. 

On yet another point I was still more unaccount- 
ably misunderstood. The gentleman had harangued 
against "consolidation." I told him, in .reply, that 
there was one kind of consolidation to which I was 
attached, and that was the consolidation of our Union ; 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 161 

that this was precisely that consolidation to which I 
feared others were not attached, and that such con- 
solidation was the very end of the Constitution, the 
leading object, as they had informed us themselves, 
which its framers had kept in view. I turned to 
their communication 1 and read their very words, "the 
consolidation of the Union," and expressed my devo- 
tion to this sort of consolidation. I said, in terms, 
that I wished not in the slightest degree to augment 
the powers of this government ; that my object was to 
preserve, not to enlarge ; and that by consolidating 
the Union I understood no more than the strengthen- 
ing of the Union and perpetuating it. Having been 
thus explicit, having thus read from the printed book 
the precise words which I adopted as expressing my 
own sentiments, it passes comprehension how any man 
could understand me as contending for an extension 
of the powers of the government, or for consolidation 
in that odious sense in which it means an accumula- 
tion in the federal government of the powers properly 
belonging to the States. 

I repeat, sir, that, in adopting the sentiment of the 
framers of the Constitution, I read their language 
audibly and word for word ; and I pointed out the 
distinction, just as fully as I have now done, between 
the consolidation of the Union and that other obnox- 
ious consolidation which I disclaimed. And yet the 
honorable member misunderstood me. The gentle- 
man had said that he wished for no fixed revenue, — 
not a shilling. If by a word he could convert the 
Capitol into gold, he would not do it. Why all this 
fear of revenue ? Why, sir, because, as the gentle- 

1 The letter of the Federal Convention to the Congress of 
the Confederation, transmitting the plan of the Constitution. 



162 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

man told us, it tends to consolidation. Now this can 
mean neither more nor less than that a common reve- 
nue is a common interest, and that all common inter- 
ests tend to preserve the union of the States. I 
confess I like that tendency; if the gentleman dis- 
likes it, he is right in deprecating a shilling of fixed 
revenue. So much, sir, for consolidation. 

As well as I recollect the course of his remarks, the 
honorable gentleman next recurred to the subject of 
the tariff. He did not doubt the word must be of un- 
pleasant sound to me, and proceeded, with an effort 
neither new nor attended with new success, to involve 
me and my votes in inconsistenc}^ and contradiction. 
I am happy the honorable gentleman has furnished 
me an opportunity of a timely remark or two on that 
subject. I was glad he approached it, for it is a 
question I enter upon without fear from anybody. 
The strenuous toil of the gentleman lias been to raise 
an inconsistency between my dissent to the tariff in 
1824 and my vote in 1828. It is labor lost. He 
pays undeserved compliment to my speech in 1824 ; 
but this is to raise me high, that my fall, as he would 
have it, in 1828, may be more signal. Sir, there was 
no fall. Between the ground I stood on in 1824 and 
that I took in 1828, there was not only no precipice, 
but no declivity. It was a change of position to meet 
new chxuimstances, but on the same level. A plain 
tale explains the whole matter. In 1816 I had not 
acquiesced in the tariff, then supported by South 
Carolina. To some parts of it, especially, I felt and 
expressed great repugnance. I held the same opin- 
ions in 1820 at the meeting in Faneuil Hall, to which 
the gentleman has alluded. I said then, and say 
now, that, as an original question, the authority of 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 163 

Congress to exercise the revenue power, with direct 
reference to the protection of manufactures, is a 
questionable authority, far more questionable, in my 
judgment, than the power of internal improvements. 
I must confess, sir, that in one respect some impres- 
sion has been made on my opinions lately. Mr. Madi- 
son's publication has put the power in a very strong 
light. He has placed it, I must acknowledge, upon 
grounds of construction and argument which seem 
impregnable. But, even if the power were doubtful 
on the face of the Constitution itself, it had been 
assumed and asserted in the first revenue law ever 
passed under that same Constitution ; and on this 
ground, as a matter settled by contemporaneous prac- 
tice, I had refrained from expressing the opinion that 
the tariff laws transcended constitutional limits, as the 
gentleman supposes. What I did say at Faneuil Hall, 
as far as I now remember, was that this was origi- 
nally matter of doubtful construction. The gentleman 
himself, I suppose, thinks there is no doubt about it, 
and that the laws are plainly against the Constitution. 
Mr. Madison's letters already referred to contain, in 
my judgment, by far the most able exposition extant 
of this part of the Constitution. He has satisfied me, 
so far as the practice of the government had left it an 
open question. 

With a great majority of the Representatives of 
Massachusetts, I voted against the tariff of 1824. 
My reasons were then given, and I will not now 
repeat them. But, notwithstanding our dissent, the 
great States of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and 
Kentucky went for the bill, in almost unbroken col- 
umn, and it passed. Congress and the President sanc- 
tioned it, and it became the law of the land. What, 



164 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

then, were we to do? Our only option was either to 
fall in with this settled course of public policy, and 
accommodate ourselves to it as well as we could, or to 
embrace the South Carolina doctrine, and talk of nul- 
lifying the statute by state interference. 

This last alternative did not suit our principles, and 
of course we adopted the former. In 1827 the sub- 
ject came again before Congress, on a proposition to 
afford some relief to the branch of wool and woolens. 
We looked upon the system of protection as being 
fixed and settled. The law of 1824 remained. It 
had gone into full operation, and, in regard to some 
objects intended by it, perhaps most of them had 
produced all its expected effects. No man proposed 
to repeal it, no man attempted to renew the general 
contest on its principle. But, owing to subsequent 
and unforeseen occurrences, the benefit intended by 
it to wool and woolen fabrics had not been realized. 
Events not known here when the law passed had 
taken place which defeated its object in that partic- 
ular respect. A measure was accordingly, brought 
forward to meet this precise deficiency, to remedy 
this particular defect. It was limited to wool and 
woolens. Was ever anything more reasonable ? If 
the policy of the tariff laws had become established 
in principle as the permanent policy of the govern- 
ment, should they not be revised and amended, and 
made equal, like other laws, as exigencies should arise 
or justice require ? Because we had doubted about 
adopting the system, were we to refuse to cure its 
manifest defects after it had been adopted, and when 
no one attempted its repeal? And this, sir, is the 
inconsistency so much bruited. I had voted against 
the tariff of 1824, but it passed ; and in 1827 and 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 165 

1828 I voted to amend it in a point essential to the 
interest of my constituents. Where is the incon- 
sistency ? Could I do otherwise ? Sir, does political 
consistency consist in always giving negative votes? 
Does it require of a public man to refuse to concur in 
amending laws because they passed against his con- 
sent? Having voted against the tariff originally, does 
consistency demand that I should do all in my power 
to maintain an unequal tariff, burdensome to my own 
constituents in many respects, favorable in none ? To 
consistency of that sort I lay no claim. And there 
is another sort to which I lay as little, and that is, a 
kind of consistency by which persons feel themselves 
as much bound to oppose a proposition after it has 
become a law of the land as before. 

The bill of 1827, limited, as I have said, to the 
single object in which the tariff of 1824 had mani- 
festly failed in its effect, passed the House of Repre- 
sentatives, but was lost here. We had then the act 
of 1828. I need not recur to the history of a mea- 
sure so recent. Its enemies spiced it with whatsoever 
they thought would render it distasteful ; its friends 
took it, drugged as it was. Vast amounts of property, 
many millions, had been invested in manufactures, 
under the inducements of the act of 1824. Events 
called loudly, as I thought, for further regulation to 
secure the degree of protection intended by that act. 
I was disposed to vote for such regulation, and desired 
nothing more ; but certainly was not to be bantered 
out of my purpose by a threatened augmentation of 
duty on molasses, put into the bill for the avowed 
purpose of making it obnoxious. The vote may have 
been risrht or wron£, wise or unwise ; but it is little 
less than absurd to allege against it an inconsistency 
with opposition to the former law. 



166 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

Sir, as to the general subject of the tariff I have 
little now to say. Another opportunity may be pre- 
sented. I remarked the other day that this policy did 
not begin with us in New England ; and yet, sir, New 
England is charged with vehemence as being favor- 
able, or charged with equal vehemence as being unfa- 
vorable, to the tariff policy, just as best suits the time, 
place, and occasion for making some charge against 
her. The credulity of the public has been put to its 
extreme capacity of false impression relative to her 
conduct in this particular. Through all the South, 
during the late contest, it was New England policy 
and a New England administration that were afflict- 
ing the country with a tariff beyond all endurance ; 
while, on the other side of the Alleghanies, even the 
act of 1828 itself, the very sublimated essence of op- 
pression according to Southern opinions, was pro- 
nounced to be one of those blessings for which the 
West was indebted to the " generous South." 

With large investments in manufacturing establish- 
ments, and many and various interests connected with 
and dependent on them, it is not to be expected that 
New England, any more than other portions of the 
country, will now consent to any measure destructive 
or highly dangerous. The duty of the government, 
at the present moment, would seem to be to preserve, 
not to destroy ; to maintain the position which it has 
assumed ; and, for one, I shall feel it an indispensable 
obligation to hold it steady, as far as in my power, to 
that degree of protection which it has undertaken to 
bestow. No more of the tariff. 1 

1 " When the speech of Mr. Webster of 1824, in which he 
assigned his reasons for voting against the tariff law of that 
year, is carefully compared with his speech of 1828, it will he 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 167 

Professing to be provoked by what lie chose to 
consider a charge made by me against South Carolina, 
the honorable member, Mr. President, has taken up 
a new crusade against New England. Leaving alto- 
gether the subject of the public lands, in which his 
success, perhaps, had been neither distinguished nor 
satisfactory, and letting go, also, of the topic of the 
tariff, he sallied forth in a general assault on the opin- 
ions, politics, and parties of New England as they 
have been exhibited in the last thirty years. This is 
natural. The "narrow policy" of the public lands 
had proved a legal settlement in South Carolina, and 
was not to be removed. The "accursed policy'' of 
the tariff, also, had established the fact of its birth 
and parentage in the same State. No wonder, there- 
fore, the gentleman wished to carry the war, as he 
expressed it, into the enemy's country. Prudently 
willing to quit these subjects, he was doubtless desir- 
ous of fastening on others which could not be trans- 
ferred south of Mason and Dixon's line. The politics 
of New England became his theme ; and it was in this 
part of his speech, I think, that he menaced me with 
such sore discomfiture. Discomfiture! Why, sir, when 
he attacks anything which I maintain, and overthrows 
it, when he turns the right or left of any position 
which I take up, when he drives me from any ground 
I choose to occupy, he may then talk of discomfiture, 

found that there is no other diversity than that which was induced 
by the change in the state of the country itself in reference to 
its manufacturing interests, and by the course pursued in refer- 
ence to the details of the bill by those opposed to protection in 
toto. It is the best proof of this that, in the former editions of 
Mr. Webster's works, the two speeches were, for more easy 
comparison, placed side by side." Everett's Biographical Me- 
moir in Webster's Works, vol. i. lxxxv. 



168 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

but not till that distant day. What has he done? 
Has he maintained his own charges ? Has he proved 
what he alleged ? Has he sustained himself in his 
attack on the government, and on the history of the 
North, in the matter of the public lands ? Has he 
disproved a fact, refuted a proposition, weakened an 
argument, maintained by me ? Has he come within 
beat of drum of any position of mine ? Oh, no ; but 
he has " carried the war into the enemy's country " ! 
Carried the war into the enemy's country ! Yes, sir, 
and what sort of a war has he made of it ? Why, sir, 
he has stretched a drag-net over the whole surface of 
perished pamphlets, indiscreet sermons, frothy para- 
graphs, and fuming popular addresses ; over whatever 
the pulpit in its moments of alarm, the press in its 
heats, and parties in their extravagances, have sever- 
ally thrown off in times of general excitement and 
violence. He has thus swept together a mass of such 
things as, but that they are now old and cold, the 
public health would have required him rather to leave 
in their state of dispersion. For a good long hour or 
two, we had the unbroken pleasure of listening to the 
honorable member while he recited, with his usual 
grace and spirit and with evident high gusto, speeches, 
pamphlets, addresses, and all the et ceteras of the polit- 
ical press, such as warm heads produce in warm times, 
and such as it would be " discomfiture " indeed for any 
one whose taste did not delight in that sort of reading: 
to be obliged to peruse. This is his war. This it is 
to carry the war into the enemy's country. It is in 
an invasion of this sort that he flatters himself with 
the expectation of gaining laurels fit to adorn a Sena- 
tor's brow. 

Mr. President, I shall not — it will not, I trust, be 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 169 

expected that I should — either now or at any time 
separate this farrago into parts, and answer and exam- 
ine its components. I shall barely bestow upon it all 
a general remark or two. In the run of forty years, 
sir, under this Constitution, we have experienced sun- 
dry successive violent party contests. Party arose, 
indeed, with the Constitution itself, and, in some form 
or other, has attended it through the greater part of 
its history. Whether any other Constitution than the 
old Articles of Confederation was desirable, was itself 
a question on which parties divided ; if a new Consti- 
tution were framed, what powers should be given to it 
was another question ; and when it had been formed, 
what was, in fact, the just extent of the powers actu- 
allv conferred was a third. Parties, as we know, 
existed under the first administration as distinctly 
marked as those which have manifested themselves at 
any subsequent period. The contest immediately pre- 
ceding the political change in 1801, and that, again, 
which existed at the commencement of the late war, 
are other instances of party excitement of something 
more than usual strength and intensity. In all these 
conflicts there was, no doubt, much of violence on 
both and all sides. It would be impossible, if one had 
a fancy for such employment, to adjust the relative 
quantum of violence between these contending par- 
ties. There was enough in each, as must always be 
expected in popular governments. With a great deal 
of popular and decorous discussion, there was min- 
gled a great deal, also, of declamation, virulence, crimi- 
nation, and abuse. In regard to any party, probably, 
at one of the leading epochs in the history of parties, 
enough may be found to make out another inflamed 
exhibition not unlike that with which the honorable 



170 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

member has edified us. For myself, sir, I shall not 
rake among the rubbish of bygone times to see what 
I can find, or whether I cannot find something by 
which I can fix a blot on the escutcheon of any State, 
any party, or any part of the country. General 
Washington's administration was steadily and zeal- 
ously maintained, as we all know, by New England. 
It was violently opposed elsewhere. We know in 
what quarter he had the most earnest, constant, and 
persevering support in all his great and leading mea- 
sures. We know where his private and personal char- 
acter was held in the highest degree of attachment 
and veneration; and we know, too, where his mea- 
sures were opposed, his services slighted, and his char- 
acter vilified. We know, or we might know if we 
turned to the journals, who expressed respect, grati- 
tude, and regret when he retired from the chief ma- 
gistracy, and who refused to express either respect, 
gratitude, or regret. I shall not open those journals. 
Publications more abusive or scurrilous never saw the 
light than were sent forth against Washington, and 
all his leading measures, from presses south of New 
England. But I shall not look them up. I employ 
no scavengers ; no one is in attendance on me, fur- 
nishing such means of retaliation : and if there were, 
with an ass's load of them, with a bulk as huge as 
that which the gentleman himself has produced, I 
would not touch one of them. I see enough of the 
violence of our own times to be no way anxious to 
rescue from forgetfulness the extravagances of times 
past. 

Besides, what is all this to the present purpose ? It 
has nothing to do with the public lands, in regard to 
which the attack was begun ; and it has nothing to 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 171 

do with those sentiments and opinions which, I have 
thought, tend to disunion, and all of which the hon- 
orable member seems to have adopted himself, and 
undertaken to defend. New England has at times — 
so argues the gentleman — held opinions as dangerous 
as those which he now holds. Suppose this were so ; 
why should he therefore abuse New England? If he 
finds himself countenanced by acts of hers, how is it 
that, while he relies on these acts, he covers, or seeks 
to cover, their authors with reproach ? But, sir, if in 
the course of forty years there have been undue effer- 
vescences of party in New England, has the same 
thing happened nowhere else ? Party animosity and 
party outrage, not in New England, but elsewhere, 
denounced President Washington, not only as a Fed- 
eralist, but as a Tory, a British agent, a man who in 
his high office sanctioned corruption. But does the 
honorable member suppose, if I had a tender here 
who should put such an effusion of wickedness and 
folly into my hand, that I would stand up and read it 
against the South ? Parties ran into great heats again 
in 1799 and 1800. What was said, sir, or rather what 
was not said, in those years, against John Adams, 
one of the committee that drafted the Declaration of 
Independence, and its admitted ablest defender on 
the floor of Congress? If the gentleman wishes to 
increase his stores of party abuse and frothy violence, 
if he has a determined proclivity to such pursuits, there 
are treasures of that sort south of the Potomac, much 
to his taste, yet untouched. I shall not touch them. 

The parties which divided the country at the com- 
mencement of the late war were violent. But then 
there was violence on both sides, and violence in every 
State. Minorities and majorities were equally violent. 



172 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

There was no more violence against the war in New 
England than in other States ; nor any more appear- 
ance of violence, except that, owing to a dense popu- 
lation, greater facility of assembling, and more presses, 
there may have been more in quantity spoken and 
printed there than in some other places. In the arti- 
cle of sermons, too, New England is somewhat more 
abundant than South Carolina ; and for that reason 
the chance of finding here and there an exceptionable 
one may be greater. I hope, too, there are more good 
ones. Opposition may have been more formidable in 
New England, as it embraced a larger portion of the 
whole population ; but it was no more unrestrained in 
principle or violent in manner. The minorities dealt 
quite as harshly with their own State governments as 
the majorities dealt with the administration here. 
There were presses on both sides, popular meetings on 
both sides, ay, and pulpits on both sides also. The 
gentleman's purveyors have only catered for him 
among the productions of one side. I certainly shall 
not supply the deficiency by furnishing samples of the 
other. I leave to him and to them the whole concern. 
It is enough for me to say that if, in any part of 
this their grateful occupation, if, in all their re- 
searches they find anything in the history of Massa- 
chusetts or New England, or in the proceedings of 
any legislative or other public body, disloyal to the 
Union, speaking slightingly of its value, proposing to 
break it up, or recommending non-intercourse with 
neighboring States, on account of difference of po- 
litical opinion, then, sir, I give them all up to the hon- 
orable gentleman's unrestrained rebuke ; expecting, 
however, that he will extend his bufferings in like 
manner to all similar proceedings wherever else found. 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 173 

The gentleman, sir, has spoken at large of former 
parties, now no longer in being, by their received ap- 
pellations, and has undertaken to instruct us not only 
in the knowledge of their principles, but of their 
respective pedigrees also. He has ascended to their 
origin, and run out their genealogies. With most ex- 
emplary modesty he speaks of the party to which he 
professes to have himself belonged as the true Pure, 
the only honest, patriotic party, derived, by regular 
descent from father to son, from the time of the vir- 
tuous Romans ! Spreading before us the family tree 
of political parties, he takes especial care to show 
himself snugly perched on a popular bough ! He is 
wakeful to the expediency of adopting such rules of 
descent as shall bring him in, to the exclusion of 
others, as an heir to the inheritance of all public virtue 
and all true political principle. His party and his 
opinions are sure to be orthodox ; heterodoxy is con- 
fined to his opponents. He spoke, sir, of the Federal- 
ists, and I thought I saw some eyes begin to open and 
stare a little when he ventured on that ground. I 
expected he would draw his sketches rather lightly 
when he looked on the circle round him, and espe- 
cially if he should cast his thoughts to the high places 
out of the Senate. Nevertheless, he went back to 
Rome, ad annum urbis conditce, 1 and found the fathers 
of the Federalists in the primeval aristocrats of that 
renowned city. He traced the flow of Federal blood 
down through successive ages and centuries till he 
brought it into the veins of the American Tories, of 
whom, by the way, there were twenty in the Carolinas 
for one in Massachusetts. From the Tories he fol- 

1 In the year of the city's foundation ; "In the year one," in 
colloquial speech. 



174 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

lowed it to the Federalists ; and, as the Federal party 
was broken up, and there was no possibility of trans- 
mitting it further on this side the Atlantic, he seems 
to have discovered that it has gone off collaterally, 
though against all canons of descent, into the Ultras 
of France, and finally become extinguished, like ex- 
ploded gas, among the adherents of Dom Miguel ! x 
This, sir, is an abstract of the gentleman's history of 
Federalism. I am not about to controvert it. It is 
not at present worth the pains of refutation ; because, 
sir, if at this day any one feels the sin of Federalism 
lying heavily on his conscience, he can easily procure 
remission. He may even obtain an indulgence, if he 
be desirous of repeating the same transgression. It is 
an affair of no difficulty to get into this same right line 
of patriotic descent. A man nowadays is at liberty to 
choose his political parentage. He may elect his own 
father. Federalist or not, he ma} r , if he choose, claim 
to belong to the favored stock, and his claim will be 
allowed. He may carry back his pretensions just as 
far as the honorable gentleman himself ; nay, he may 
make himself out the honorable gentleman's cousin, 
and prove satisfactorily that he is descended from the 
same political great-grandfather. All this is allow- 
able. We all know a process, sir, by which the whole 
Essex Junto 2 could in one hour be all washed white 

1 Dom Miguel, the head of the Absolutists, had in 1828 
usurped the throne of Portugal. His niece, Maria da Gloria, 
was restored in 1833. 

2 The name is as old as 1781, when John Hancock applied it 
to a group of public men of Essex County, Massachusetts. The 
name was moribund when John Adams revived it. In its widest 
sense, it applied to the extreme Federalism displayed during the 
War of 1812 and in the Hartford Convention. Fisher Ames, 
George Cabot, and Timothy Pickering were prominent members. 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 175 

from their ancient Federalism, and come out, every 
one of them, original democrats dyed in the wool I 
Some of them have actually undergone the operation, 
and they say it is quite easy. 1 The only inconven- 
ience it occasions, as they tell us, is a slight tendency 
of the blood to the face, a soft suffusion, which, how- 
ever, is very transient, since nothing is said by those 
whom they join calculated to deepen the red on the 
cheek, but a prudent silence is observed in regard 
to all the past. Indeed, sir, some smiles of approba- 
tion have been bestowed, and some crumbs of comfort 
have fallen, not a thousand miles from the door of 
the Hartford Convention. And if the author of the 
Ordinance of 1787 possessed the other requisite quali- 
fications, there is no knowing, notwithstanding his 
Federalism, to what heights of favor he might not yet 
attain. 

Mr. President, in carrying his warfare, such as it is, 
into New England, the honorable gentleman, all along, 
professes to be acting on the defensive. He chooses to* 
consider me as having assailed South Carolina, and 
insists that he comes forth only as her champion and 
in her defense. Sir, I do not admit that I made any 
attack whatever on South Carolina. Nothing like it. 
The honorable member, in his first speech, expressed 
opinions in regard to revenue and some other topics- 

Henry Cabot Lodge's Life of George Cabot has softened some of 
the legends which had attached themselves to this black beast 
of New England politics. 

1 This may refer to Harrison Gray Otis r who became a candi- 
date for the office of first Mayor of Boston in 1822. On account 
of his record during 1 the War of 1812 and as a member of the 
Hartford Convention, his name was withdrawn ; but he was. 
elected mayor in 1829,. when he made an explanation of his polit- 
ical course. 



176 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

which I heard both with pain and with surprise. I told 
the gentleman I was aware that such sentiments were 
entertained out of the government, but had not ex- 
pected to find them advanced in it ; that I knew there 
were persons in the South who speak of our Union 
with indifference or doubt, taking pains to magnify 
its evils and to say nothing of its benefits ; that the 
honorable member himself, I was sure, could never be 
one of these; and I regretted the expression of such 
opinions as he had avowed, because I thought their 
obvious tendency was to encourage feelings of disre- 
spect to the Union, and to impair its strength. This, 
sir, is the sum and substance of all I said on the sub- 
ject. And this constitutes the attack which called on 
the chivalry of the gentleman, in his own opinion, to 
harry us with such a foray among the party pamphlets 
and party proceedings of Massachusetts ! If he means 
that I spoke with dissatisfaction or disrespect of the 
ebullitions of individuals in South Carolina, it is true. 
But if he means that I assailed the character of the 
State, her honor or patriotism, that I reflected on her 
history or her conduct, he has not the slightest ground 
for any such assumption. I did not even refer, I 
think, in my observations, to any collection of indi- 
viduals. I said nothing of the recent conventions. 
I spoke in the most guarded and careful manner, and 
only expressed my regret for the publication of opin- 
ions which I presumed the honorable member disap- 
proved as much as myself. In this, it seems, I was 
mistaken. I do not remember that the gentleman has 
disclaimed any sentiment or any opinion of a supposed 
anti-Union tendency which on all or any of the recent 
occasions has been expressed. The whole drift of his 
speech has been rather to prove that, in divers times 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 177 

and manners, sentiments equally liable to my objec- 
tion have been avowed in New England. And one 
would suppose that his object, in this reference to 
Massachusetts, was to find a precedent to justify pro- 
ceedings in the South, were it not for the reproach 
and contumely with which he labors, all along, to load 
these his own chosen precedents. By way of defend- 
ing South Carolina from what he chooses to think an 
attack on her, he first quotes the example of Massa- 
chusetts, and then denounces that example in good set 
terms. This twofold purpose, not very consistent, one 
would think, with itself, was exhibited more than once 
in the course of his speech. He referred, for instance, 
to the Hartford Convention. Did he do this for 
authority, or for a topic of reproach ? Apparently for 
both ; for he told us that he should find no fault with 
the mere fact of holding such a convention, and con- 
sidering and discussing such questions as he supposes 
were then and there discussed ; but what rendered it 
obnoxious was its being held at the time, and the cir- 
cumstances of the country then existing. We were in 
a war, he said, and the country needed all our aid ; 
the hand of government required to be strengthened, 
not weakened ; and patriotism should have postponed 
such proceedings to another day. The thing itself, 
then, is a precedent ; the time and manner of it only, 
a subject of censure. 

Now, sir, I go much further on this point than the 
honorable member. Supposing, as the gentleman 
seems to do, that the Hartford Convention assembled 
for any such purpose as breaking up the Union be- 
cause they thought unconstitutional laws had been 
passed, or to consult on that subject, or to calculate 
the value of the Union, — supposing this to be their 



178 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

purpose, or any part of it, then, I say, the meeting 
itself was disloyal, and was obnoxious to censure, 
whether held in time of peace or time of war, or under 
whatever circumstances. The material question is the 
object. Is dissolution the object? If it be, external 
circumstances may make it a more or less aggravated 
case, but cannot affect the principle. I do not hold, 
therefore, sir, that the Hartford Convention was par- 
donable, even to the extent of the gentleman's admis- 
sion, if its objects were really such as have been im- 
puted to it. Sir, there never was a time, under any 
degree of excitement, in which the Hartford Conven- 
tion, or any other convention, could have maintained 
itself one moment in New England, if assembled for 
any such purpose as the gentleman says would have 
been an allowable purpose. To hold conventions to 
decide constitutional law ! To try the binding valid- 
ity of statutes by votes in a convention ! Sir, the 
Hartford Convention, I presume, would not desire 
that the honorable gentleman should be their defender 
or advocate if he puts their case upon such untenable 
and extravagant grounds. 

Then, sir, the gentleman has no fault to find with 
these recently promulgated South Carolina opinions. 
And certainly he need have none ; for his own senti- 
ments, as now advanced and advanced on reflection, 
as far as I have been able to comprehend them, go the 
full length of all these opinions. I propose, sir, to 
say something on these, and to consider how far they 
are just and constitutional. Before doing that, how- 
ever, let me observe that the eulogium pronounced by 
the honorable gentleman on the character of the State 
of South Carolina for her Revolutionary and other 
merits meets my hearty concurrence. I shall not 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 179 

acknowledge that the honorable member goes before 
me in regard for whatever of distinguished talent, or 
distinguished character, South Carolina has produced. 
I claim part of the honor, I partake in the pride, of 
her great names. I claim them for countrymen, one 
and all, — the Laurenses, 1 the Rutledges, the Pinck- 
neys, the Sumters, the Marions, Americans all, whose 
fame is no more to be hemmed in by State lines than 
their talents and patriotism were capable of being cir- 
cumscribed within the same narrow limits. In their 
day and generation they served and honored the coun- 
try, and the whole country ; and their renown is of the 
treasures of the whole country. Him whose honored 
name the gentleman himself bears, 2 — does he esteem 
me less capable of gratitude for his patriotism, or 
sympathy for his sufferings, than if his eyes had first 
opened upon the light of Massachusetts instead of 
South Carolina? Sir, does he suppose it in his power 
to exhibit a Carolina name so bright as to produce 

1 John. Laurens was an aide to Washington, and was called 
the " Bayard of the Revolution." Governor John and Edward 
Rutledge both served in the Revolution, as did Charles Cotes- 
worth and Thomas Pinckney, who also were brothers. Sir Ban- 
astre Tarleton referred to General Thomas Sumter as the 
"gamecock," and Francis Marion as the "swamp-fox." See 
note on page 63 of Hayne's Speech. 

2 Isaac Hayne, great- uncle of Robert Y. Hayne, was hanged 
by the joint order of Colonel Balfour and Lord Rawdon, both of 
whom afterward denied responsibility for the act. Hayne, for 
honorable reasons, had taken the British oath of allegiance, on 
condition that he should not be obliged to bear arms ; he was, 
however, coerced into service. He therefore broke his parole, 
became an American officer, was captured by the British, and 
met an unjust fate. In the Southern Review for 1828 (vol. i.) 
is an article by Robert Y. Hayne on the execution of Colonel 
Hayne, largely in answer to Lord Rawdou's attempted justifi- 
cation. 



180 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

envy in my bosom ? No, sir, increased gratification 
and delight, rather. I thank God that, if I am gifted 
with little of the spirit which is able to raise mortals 
to the skies, I have yet none, as I trust, of that other 
spirit which would drag angels down. When I shall 
be found, sir, in my place here in the Senate or else- 
where, to sneer at public merit because it happens to 
spring up beyond the little limits of my own State or 
neighborhood ; when I refuse, for any such cause, or 
for any cause, the homage due to American talent, to 
elevated patriotism, to sincere devotion to liberty and 
the country ; or, if I see an uncommon endowment of 
Heaven, if I see extraordinary capacity and virtue in 
any son of the South, and if, moved by local preju- 
dice or gangrened by State jealousy, I get up here to 
abate the tithe of a hair from his just character and 
just fame, — may my tongue cleave to the roof of my 
mouth ! 

Sir, let me recur to pleasing recollections ; let me 
indulge in refreshing remembrance of the past; let 
me remind you that, in early times, no States cher- 
ished greater harmony, both of principle and feeling, 
than Massachusetts and South Carolina. Would to 
God that harmony might again return ! Shoulder to 
shoulder they went through the Ke volution ; hand in 
hand they stood round the administration of Wash- 
ington, and felt his own great arm lean on them for 
support. Unkind feeling, if it exist, alienation and 
distrust, are the growth, unnatural to such soils, of 
false principles since sown. They are weeds, the seeds 
of which that same great arm never scattered. 

Mr. President, I shall enter on no encomium upon 
Massachusetts ; she needs none. There she is. Be- 
hold her, and judge for yourselves. There is her 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 181 

history ; the world knows it by heart. The past, at 
least, is secure. There is Boston, and Concord, and 
Lexington, and Bunker Hill ; and there they will 
remain forever. The bones of her sons, falling in 
the great struggle for independence, now lie mingled 
with the soil of every State from New England to 
Georgia ; and there they will lie forever. And, sir, 
where American liberty raised its first voice, and 
where its youth was nurtured and sustained, there 
it still lives in the strength of its manhood and full 
of its original spirit. If discord and disunion shall 
wound it ; if party strife and blind ambition shall 
hawk at and tear it ; if folly and madness, if uneasi- 
ness under salutary and necessary restraint, shall suc- 
ceed in separating it from that Union by which alone 
its existence is made sure, — it will stand, in the end, 
by the side of that cradle in which its infancy was 
rocked ; it will stretch forth its arm with whatever of 
vigor it may still retain over the friends who gather 
round it ; and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amidst 
the proudest monuments of its own glory, and on the 
very spot of its origin. 

There yet remains to be performed, Mr. President, 
by far the most grave and important duty which I 
feel to be devolved on me by this occasion. It is to 
state and to defend what I conceive to be the true 
principles of the Constitution under which we are here 
assembled. I might well have desired that so weighty 
a task should have fallen into other and abler hands. 
I could have wished that it should have been executed 
by those whose character and experience give weight 
and influence to their opinions, such as cannot possibly 
belong to mine. But, sir, I have met the occasion, 
not sought it ; and I shall proceed to state my own 



182 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

sentiments, without challenging for them any particu- 
lar regard, with studied plainness, and as much preci- 
sion as possible. 

I understand the honorable gentlemen from South 
Carolina to maintain that it is a right of the State 
legislatures to interfere whenever, in their judgment, 
this government transcends its constitutional limits, 
and to arrest the operation of its laws. 

I understand him to maintain this right as a right 
existing under the Constitution, not as a right to over- 
throw it on the ground of extreme necessity, such as 
would justify violent revolution. 

I understand him to maintain an authority, on the 
part of the States, thus to interfere for the purpose of 
correcting the exercise of power by the general govern- 
ment, of checking it, and of compelling it to conform 
to their opinion of the extent of its powers. 

I understand him to maintain that the ultimate 
power of judging of the constitutional extent of its 
own authority is not lodged exclusively in the general 
government or any branch of it ; but that, on the 
contrary, the States may lawfully decide for them- 
selves, and each State for itself, whether, in a given 
case, the act of the general government transcends its 

power. 

I understand him to insist that, if the exigency of 
the case, in the opinion of any State government, 
require it, such State government may, by its own 
sovereign authority, annul an act of the general gov- 
ernment which it deems plainly and palpably uncon- 
stitutional. 

This is the sum of what I understand from him to 
be the South Carolina doctrine, and the doctrine which 
fee maintains. I propose to consider it, and compare 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 183 

it with the Constitution. Allow me to say, as a pre- 
liminary remark, that I call this the South Carolina 
doctrine only because the gentleman himself has so de- 
nominated it. I do not feel at liberty to say that South 
Carolina, as a State, has ever advanced these senti- 
ments. I hope she has not, and never may. That a 
great majority of her people are opposed to the tariff 
laws is doubtless true. That a majority, somewhat 
less than that just mentioned, conscientiously believe 
these laws unconstitutional, may probably also be true. 
But that any majority holds to the right of direct State 
interference at State discretion, the right of nullifying 
acts of Congress by acts of State legislation, is more 
than I know and what I shall be slow to believe. 

That there are individuals besides the honorable 
gentleman who do maintain these opinions, is quite 
certain. I recollect the recent expression of a senti- 
ment which circumstances attending its utterance and 
publication justify us in supposing was not unpremedi- 
tated : " The sovereignty of the State, — never to be 
controlled, construed, or decided on but by her own 
feelings of honorable justice." 

[Mr. Hayne here rose and said that, for the pur- 
pose of being clearly understood, he would state that 
his proposition was in the words of the Virginia Reso- 
lution, as follows : — 

"That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremp- 
torily declare, that it views the powers of the federal 
government, as resulting from the compact to which 
the States are parties, as limited by the plain sense 
and intention of the instrument constituting that com- 
pact, as no farther valid than they are authorized by 
the grants enumerated in that compact ; and that, in 
case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise 



184 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

of other powers not granted by the said compact, the 
States who are parties thereto have the right, and are 
in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress 
of the evil, and for maintaining, within their respec- 
tive limits, the authorities, rights, and liberties apper- 
taining to them."] 

Mr. Webster resumed : — 

I am quite aware, Mr. President, of the existence 
of the resolution which the gentleman read, and has 
now repeated, and that he relies on it as his authority. 
I know the source, too, from which it is understood 
to have proceeded. I need not say that I have much 
respect for the constitutional opinions of Mr. Madi- 
son ; they wonld weigh greatly with me always. But, 
before the authority of his opinion be vouched for the 
gentleman's proposition, it will be proper to consider 
what is the fair interpretation of that resolution to 
which Mr. Madison is understood to have given his 
sanction. As the gentleman construes it, it is an 
authority for him. Possibly he may not have adopted 
the right construction. That resolution declares that, 
in the case of the dangerous exercise of powers not 
granted by the general government, the States may 
interpose to arrest the progress of the evil. But how 
interpose, and what does this declaration purport? 
Does it mean no more than that there may be extreme 
cases in which the people, in any mode of assembling, 
may resist usurpation and relieve themselves from a 
tyrannical government ? No one will deny this. Such 
resistance is not only acknowledged to be just in Amer- 
ica, but in England also. Blackstone admits as much 
in the theory, and practice too, of the English consti- 
tution. We, sir, who oppose the Carolina doctrine do 
not deny that the people may, if they choose, throw 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 185 

off any government when it becomes oppressive and 
intolerable, and erect a better in its stead. We all 
know that civil institutions are established for the 
public benefit, and that, when they cease to answer the 
ends of their existence, they may be changed. But 
I do not understand the doctrine now contended for 
to be that which, for the sake of distinctness, we may 
call the right of revolution. I understand the gentle- 
man to maintain that without revolution, without civil 
commotion, without rebellion, a remedy for supposed 
abuse and transgression of the powers of the general 
government lies in a direct appeal to the interference 
of the State governments. 

[Mr. Hayne here rose and said : He did not con- 
tend for the mere right of revolution, but for the right 
of constitutional resistance. What he maintained was 
that, in case of a plain, palpable violation of the Con- 
stitution by the general government, a State may inter- 
pose, and that this interposition is constitutional.] 

Mr. Webster resumed : — 

So, sir, I understood the gentleman, and am happy 
to find that I did not misunderstand him. What he 
contends for is, that it is constitutional to interrupt the 
administration of the Constitution itself, in the hands 
of those who are chosen and sworn to administer it, 
by the direct interference, in form of law, of the States, 
in virtue of their sovereign capacity. 

The inherent right in the people to reform their 
government I do not deny ; and they have another 
right, and that is, to resist unconstitutional laws with- 
out overturning the government. It is no doctrine of 
mine that unconstitutional laws bind the people. The 
great question is, Whose prerogative is it to decide 
on the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of the 
laws ? On that, the main debate hinges. 



186 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

The proposition that, in case of a supposed viola- 
tion of the Constitution by Congress, the States have 
a constitutional right to interfere and annul the law 
of Congress, is the proposition of the gentleman. I 
do not admit it. If the gentleman had intended no 
more than to assert the right of revolution for jus- 
tifiable cause, he would have said only what all agree 
to. But I cannot conceive that there can be a middle 
course between submission to the laws, when regularly 
pronounced constitutional, on the one hand, and open 
resistance, which is revolution or rebellion, on the 
other. I say the right of a State to annul a law of 
Congress cannot be maintained but on the ground of 
the inalienable right of man to resist oppression ; that 
is to say, upon the ground of revolution. I admit that 
there is an ultimate violent remedy, above the Con- 
stitution and in defiance of the Constitution, which 
may be resorted to when a revolution is to be justified. 
But I do not admit that, under the Constitution and 
in conformity with it, there is any mode in which a 
State government, as a member of the Union, can 
interfere and stop the progress of the general govern- 
ment by force of her own laws, under any circum- 
stances whatever. 

This leads us to inquire into the origin of this gov- 
ernment and the source of its power. Whose agent 
is it? Is it the creature of the State legislatures, or 
the creature of the people ? If the government of the 
United States be the agent of the State governments, 
then they may control it, provided they can agree in 
the manner of controlling it ; if it be the agent of the 
people, then the people alone can control it, restrain 
it, modify or reform it. It is observable enough that 
the doctrine for which the honorable gentleman con- 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 187 

tends leads him to the necessity of maintaining not 
only that this general government is the creature of 
the States, but that it is the creature of each of the 
States severally, so that each may assert the power 
for itself of determining whether it acts witbin the 
limits of its authority. It is the servant of four-and- 
twenty masters, of different wills and different pur- 
poses, and yet bound to obey all. This absurdity (for 
it seems no less) arises from a misconception as to 
the origin of this government and its true character. 
It is, sir, the people's Constitution, the people's gov- 
ernment, made for the people, made by the people, 
and answerable to the people. 1 The people of the 
United States have declared that this Constitution 
shall be the supreme law. We must either admit the 
proposition or dispute their authority. The States are 
unquestionably sovereign, so far as their sovereignty 
is not affected by this supreme law. But the State 
legislatures, as political bodies, however sovereign, are 
yet not sovereign over the people. So far as the peo- 
ple have given power to the general government, so 
far the grant is unquestionably good, and the govern- 
ment holds of the people, and not of the .State gov- 
ernments. We are all agents of the same supreme 
power, the people. The general government and the 
State governments derive their authority from the 
same source. Neither can, in relation to the other, be 
called primary, though one is definite and restricted, 

1 Compare with Theodore Parker's " A government of all the 
people, by all the people, for all the people " (Speech, May 29, 
1850) and Abraham Lincoln's still simpler " government of the 
people, by the people, for the people " (Gettysburg address, 
November 19, 18(33). See an interesting statement iu Herndon 
and Weik's Lincoln, ii. 396. 



188 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

and the other general and residuary. The national 
government possesses those powers which it can be 
shown the people have conferred on it, and no more. 
All the rest belongs to the State governments, or to 
the people themselves. So far as the people have 
restrained State sovereignty, by the expression of their 
will, in the Constitution of the United States, so far, 
it must be admitted, State sovereignty is effectually 
controlled. I do not contend that it is, or ought to 
be, controlled farther. The sentiment to which I have 
referred propounds that State sovereignty is only to 
be controlled by its own " feeling of justice ; ? that is 
to say, it is not to be controlled at all, for one who is 
to follow his own feelings is under no legal control. 
Now, however men may think this ought to be, the 
fact is that the people of the United States have chosen 
to impose control on State sovereignties. There are 
those, doubtless, who wish they had been left without 
restraint ; but the Constitution has ordered the matter 
differently. To make war, for instance, is an exercise 
of sovereignty ; but the Constitution declares that no 
State shall make war. To coin money is another exer- 
cise of sovereign power; but no State is at liberty 
to coin money. Again, the Constitution says that 
no sovereign State shall be so sovereign as to make a 
treaty. These prohibitions, it must be confessed, are 
a control on the State sovereignty of South Carolina, 
as well as of the other States, which does not arise 
"from her own feelings of honorable justice." The 
opinion referred to, therefore, is in defiance of the 
plainest provisions of the Constitution. 

There are other proceedings of public bodies which 
have already been alluded to, and to which I refer 
again for the purpose of ascertaining more fully what 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 189 

is the length and breadth of that doctrine denominated 
the Carolina doctrine, which the honorable member 
has now stood up on this floor to maintain. In one 
of them I find it resolved that " the tariff of 1828, 
and every other tariff designed to promote one branch 
of industry at the expense of others, is contrary to 
the meaning and intention of the Federal compact ; 
and such a dangerous, palpable, and deliberate usur- 
pation of power, by a determined majority wielding 
the general government beyond the limits of its dele- 
gated powers, as calls upon the States which compose 
the suffering minority, in their sovereign capacity, to 
exercise the powers which, as sovereigns, necessarily 
devolve upon them when their compact is violated." 

Observe, sir, that this resolution holds the tariff of 
1828, and every other tariff designed to promote one 
branch of industry at the expense of another, to be 
such a dangerous, palpable, and deliberate usurpation 
of power as calls upon the States, in their sovereign 
capacity, to interfere by their own authority. This 
denunciation, Mr. President, you will please to ob- 
serve, includes our old tariff of 1816 as well as all 
others ; because that was established to promote the 
interest of the manufacturers of cotton to the mani- 
fest and admitted injury of the Calcutta cotton trade. 
Observe, again, that all the qualifications are here 
rehearsed and charged upon the tariff which are neces- 
sary to bring the case within the gentleman's propo- 
sition. The tariff is a usurpation ; it is a dangerous 
usurpation ; it is a palpable usurpation ; it is a delib- 
erate usurpation. It is such a usurpation, therefore, 
as calls upon the States to exercise their right of inter- 
ference. Here is a case, then, within the gentleman's 
principles, and all his qualifications of his principles. 



190 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

It is a case for action. The Constitution is plainly, 
dangerously, palpably, and deliberately violated; and 
the States must interpose their own authority to arrest 
the law. Let us suppose the State of South Carolina 
to express this same opinion by the voice of her le- 
gislature. That would be very imposing ; but what 
then? Is the voice of one State conclusive? It so 
happens that, at the very moment when South Caro- 
lina resolves that the tariff laws are unconstitutional, 
Pennsylvania and Kentucky resolve exactly the re- 
verse. They hold those laws to be both highly proper 
and strictly constitutional. And now, sir, how does 
the honorable member propose to deal with this case ? 
How does he relieve us from this difficulty upon any 
principle of his ? His construction gets us into it ; 
how does he propose to get us out ? 

In Carolina the tariff is a palpable, deliberate 
usurpation; Carolina, therefore, may nullify it and 
refuse to pay the duties. In Pennsylvania it is both 
clearly constitutional and highly expedient, and there 
the duties are to be paid. And yet we live under a 
government of uniform laws, and under a Constitu- 
tion, too, which contains an express provision, as it 
happens, that all duties shall be equal in all the States. 
Does not this approach absurdity ? 

If there be no power to settle such questions, inde- 
pendent of either of the States, is not the whole Union 
a rope of sand? Are we not thrown back again, pre- 
cisely, upon the old Confederation ? 

It is too plain to be argued. Four-and-twenty inter- 
preters of constitutional law, each with a power to 
decide for itself, and none with authority to bind any- 
body else, and this constitutional law the only bond 
of their union ! What is such a state of things but a 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 191 

mere connection during pleasure, or, to use the phrase- 
ology of the times, during feeling f And that feel- 
in o-, too, not the feeling of the people who established 
the Constitution, but the feeling of the State govern- 
ments. 

In another of the South Carolina addresses, having 
premised that the crisis requires " all the concentrated 
energy of passion," an attitude of open resistance to 
the laws of the Union is advised. Open resistance to 
the laws, then, is the constitutional remedy, the con- 
servative power of the State, which the South Carolina 
doctrines teach for the redress of political evils, real 
or imaginary. And its authors further say that, ap- 
pealing with confidence to the Constitution itself to 
justify their opinions, they cannot consent to try their 
accuracy by the courts of justice. In one sense, indeed, 
sir, this is assuming an attitude of open resistance in 
favor of liberty. But what sort of liberty ? The lib- 
erty of establishing their own opinions in defiance of 
the opinions of all others ; the liberty of judging and 
of deciding exclusively themselves in a matter in which 
others have as much right to judge and decide as they; 
the liberty of placing their own opinions above the 
judgment of all others, above the laws, and above the 
Constitution. This is their liberty, and this is the fair 
result of the proposition contended for by the honor- 
able gentleman. Or, it may be more properly said, it 
is identical with it, rather than a result from it. 

In the same publication, we find the following : 
" Previously to our Revolution, when the arm of op- 
pression was stretched over New England, where did 
our Northern brethren meet with a braver sympathy 
than that which sprung from the bosoms of Carolin- 
ians? We had no extortion, no oppression, no colli- 



192 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

sion with the King's ministers, no navigation interests 
springing up, in envious rivalry of England." 

This seems extraordinary language. South Caro- 
lina no collision with the King's ministers in 1775 ! 
No extortion! No oppression! But, sir, it is also 
most significant language. Does any man doubt the 
purpose for which it was penned? Can any one fail 
fco see that it was designed to raise in the reader's 
mind the question whether, at this time, — that is to 
say in 1828, — South Carolina has any collision with 
the King's ministers, any oppression or extortion to 
fear from England? Whether, in short, England is 
not as naturally the friend of South Carolina as New 
England, with her navigation interests springing up 
in envious rivalry of England? 

Is it not strange, sir, that an intelligent man in 
South Carolina, in 1828, should thus labor to prove 
that in 1775 there was no hostility, no cause of war, 
between South Carolina and England? That she had 
no occasion, in reference to her own interest or from 
a regard to her own welfare, to take up arms in the 
Revolutionary contest? Can any one account for the 
expression of such strange sentiments and their circu- 
lation through the State, otherwise than by supposing 
tin; object to be what I have already intimated, to 
raise the question, if they had no "collision" (mark 
the expression) with the ministers of King George 
the Third in 1775, what collision have they in 1828 
with the ministers of King George the Fourth? What 
is there now, in the existing state of things, to sepa- 
rate Carolina from Old, more or rather than from 
New England? 

Resolutions, sir, have been recently passed by the 
legislature of South Carolina. I need not refer to 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 193 

them ; they go no farther than the honorable gentle- 
man himself has gone, and I hope not so far. I con- 
tent myself, therefore, with debating the matter with 
him. , 

And now, sir, what I have first to say on this sub- 
ject is, that at no time and under no circumstances 
has New England, or any State in New England, or 
any respectable body of persons in New England, or 
any public man of standing in New England, put 
forth such a doctrine as this Carolina doctrine. 

The gentleman has found no case, he can find none, 
to support his own opinions by New England author- 
ity. New England has studied the Constitution in 
other schools and under other teachers. She looks 
upon it with other regards, and deems more highly 
and reverently both of its just authority and its util- 
ity and excellence. The history of her legislative 
proceedings may be traced. The ephemeral effusions 
of temporary bodies, called together by the excite- 
ment of the occasion, may be hunted up ; they have 
been hunted up. The opinions and votes of her pub- 
lic men, in and out of Congress, may be explored. It 
will all be in vain. The Carolina doctrine can derive 
from her neither countenance nor support. She re- 
jects it now ; she always did reject it ; and till she 
loses her senses she always will reject it. The honor- 
able member has referred to expressions on the sub- 
ject of the Embargo law made in this place by an 
honorable and venerable gentleman, 1 now favoring 
us with his presence. He quotes that distinguished 
Senator as saying that, in his judgment, the Embargo 
law was unconstitutional, and that therefore, in his 

1 Mr. Hillhouse of Connecticut. See note on page 99 of 
Hayne's Speech. 



194 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

opinion, the people were not bound to obey it. That, 
sir, is perfectly constitutional language. An uncon- 
stitutional law is not binding; but then it does not 
rest loith a resolution or a law of a State legislature 
to decide whether an act of Congress be or be ?iot 
constitutional. An unconstitutional act of Congress 
would not bind the people of this District, although 
they have no legislature to interfere in their behalf ; 
and, on the other hand, a constitutional law of Con- 
gress does bind the citizens of every State, although 
all their legislatures should undertake to annul it by 
act or resolution. The venerable Connecticut Senator 
is a constitutional law} r er of sound principles and 
enlarged knowledge ; a statesman practiced and expe- 
rienced, bred in the company of Washington, and hold- 
ing just views upon the nature of our governments. 
He believed the Embargo unconstitutional, and so did 
others ; but what then ? Who did he suppose was to 
decide that question ? The State legislatures ? Cer- 
tainly not. No such sentiment ever escaped his lips. 
Let us follow up, sir, this New England opposition 
to the Embargo laws ; let us trace it till we discern 
the principle which controlled and governed New 
England throughout the whole course of that oppo- 
sition. We shall then see what similarity there is 
between the New England school of constitutional 
opinions and this modern Carolina school. The gen- 
tleman, I think, read a petition from some single 
individual, addressed to the legislature of Massachu- 
setts, asserting the Carolina doctrine ; that is, the 
right of State interference to arrest the laws of the 
Union. The fate of that petition shows the sentiment 
of the legislature. It met no favor. The opinions of 
Massachusetts were very different. They had been 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 195 

expressed in 1798, in answer to the resolutions of 
Virginia, and she did not depart from them nor bend 
them to the times. Misgoverned, wronged, oppressed, 
as she felt herself to be, she still held fast her integ- 
rity to the Union. The gentleman may find in her 
proceedings much evidence of dissatisfaction with the 
measures of government, and great and deep dislike 
to the Embargo : all this makes the case so much the 
stronger for her ; for, notwithstanding all this dis- 
satisfaction and dislike, she still claimed no right to 
sever the bonds of the Union. There was heat and 
there was anger in her political feeling. Be it so ; 
but neither her heat nor her anger betrayed her into 
infidelity to the government. The gentleman labors 
to prove that she disliked the Embargo as much as 
South Carolina dislikes the tariff, and expressed her 
dislike as strongly. Be it so; but did she propose 
the Carolina remedy ? Did she threaten to interfere, 
by State authority, to annul the laws of the Union ? 
That is the question for the gentleman's consideration. 
No doubt, sir, a great majority of the people of 
New England conscientiouslv believed the Embargo 
law of 1807 unconstitutional ; as conscientiously, cer- 
tainly, as the people of South Carolina hold that 
opinion of the tariff. They reasoned thus : Congress 
has power to regulate commerce ; but here is a law, 
they said, stopping all commerce and stopping it 
indefinitely. The law is perpetual ; that is, it is not 
limited in point of time, and must of course continue 
until it shall be repealed by some other law. It is 
as perpetual, therefore, as the law against treason or 
murder. Now is this regulating commerce or destroy- 
ing it ? Is it guiding, controlling, giving the rule to 
commerce as a subsisting thing, or is it putting an 



196 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

end to it altogether ? Nothing is more certain than 
that a majority in New England deemed this law a 
violation of the Constitution. The very case required 
by the gentleman to justify State interference had 
then arisen. Massachusetts believed this law to be 
" a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of a 
power not granted by the Constitution." Deliber- 
ate it was, for it was long continued ; palpable she 
thought it, as no words in the Constitution gave the 
power, and only a construction, in her opinion most 
violent, raised it : dangerous it was, since it threat- 
ened utter ruin to her most important interests. 
Here, then, was a Carolina case. How did Massa- 
chusetts deal with it? It was, as she thought, a 
plain, manifest, palpable violation of the Constitution, 
and it brought ruin to her doors. Thousands of 
families, and hundreds of thousands of individuals, 
were beggared by it. While she saw and felt all 
this, she saw and felt also that, as a measure of na- 
tional policy, it was perfectly futile ; that the country 
was no way benefited by that which caused so much 
individual distress ; that it was efficient only for the 
production of evil, and all that evil inflicted on our- 
selves. In such a case, under such circumstances, how 
did Massachusetts demean herself? Sir, she remon- 
strated, she memorialized, she addressed herself to 
the general government, not exactly " with the con- 
centrated energy of passion," but with her own strong 
sense and the energy of sober conviction. But she 
did not interpose the arm of her own power to arrest 
the law and break the Embargo. Far from it. Her 
principles bound her to two things ; and she followed 
her principles, lead where they might, — First, to 
submit to every constitutional law of Congress ; and, 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 197 

second, if the constitutional validity of the law be 
doubted, to refer that question to the decision of the 
proper tribunals. The first principle is vain and. 
ineffectual without the second. A majority of us in 
New England believed the Embargo law unconstitu- 
tional ; but the great question was, and always will 
be in such cases, Who is to decide this ? Who is to 
judge between the people and the government? And, 
sir, it is quite plain that the Constitution of the 
United States confers on the government itself, to be 
exercised by its appropriate department and under 
its own responsibility to the people, this power of de- 
ciding ultimately and conclusively upon the just extent 
of its own authority. If this had not been done, we 
should not have advanced a single step beyond the 
old Confederation. 

Being fully of opinion that the Embargo law was 
unconstitutional, the people of New England were yet 
equally clear in the opinion (it was a matter they did 
not doubt upon) that the question, after all, must be 
decided by the judicial tribunals of the United States. 
Before those tribunals, therefore, they brought the 
question. Under the provisions of the law they had 
oiven bonds to millions in amount, and which were 
alleged to be forfeited. They suffered the bonds to 
be sued, and thus raised the question. In the old- 
fashioned way of settling disputes, they went to law. 
The case came to hearing and solemn argument ; and 
he who espoused their cause, and stood up for them 
against the validity of the Embargo Act, was none 
other than that great man, of whom the gentleman 
has made honorable mention, Samuel Dexter. 1 He 
was then, sir, in the fullness of his knowledge and 
1 See note on page 80 of Hayne's Speech. 



198 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

the maturity of his strength. He had retired from 
long and distinguished public service here to the 
renewed pursuit* of professional duties, carrying with 
him all that enlargement and expansion, all the new 
strength and force, which an acquaintance with the 
more general subjects discussed in the national coun- 
cils is capable of adding to professional attainment, 
in a mind of true greatness and comprehension. He 
was a lawyer and he was also a statesman. He had 
studied the Constitution, when he filled public station, 
that he might defend it. He had examined its prin- 
ciples that he might maintain them. More than all 
men, or at least as much as any man, he was attached 
to the general government and to the union of the 
States. His feelings and opinions all ran in that 
direction. A question of constitutional law, too, was, 
of all subjects, that one which was best suited to his 
talents and learning. Aloof from technicality, and 
unfettered by artificial rule, such a question gave 
opportunity for that deep and clear analysis, that 
mighty grasp of principle, which so much distinguished 
his higher efforts. His very statement was argument ; 
his inference seemed demonstration. The earnestness 
of his own conviction wrought conviction in others. 
One was convinced, and believed, and assented be- 
cause it was gratifying, delightful, to think, and feel, 
and believe in unison with an intellect of such evident 
superiority. 

Mr. Dexter, sir, such as I have described him, 
argued the New England cause. He put into his 
effort his whole heart as well as all the powers of his 
understanding ; for he had avowed, 'in the most public 
manner, his entire concurrence with his neighbors on 
the point in dispute. He argued the cause : it was 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 199 

lost, and New England submitted. The established 
tribunals pronounced the law constitutional, and New 
England acquiesced. Now, sir, is not this the exact 
opposite of the doctrine of the gentleman from South 
Carolina? According to him, instead of referring to 
the judicial tribunals, we should have broken up the 
Embargo by laws of our own ; we should have repealed 
it, quoad New England ; for we had a strong, pal- 
pable, and oppressive case. Sir, we believed the Em- 
bargo unconstitutional ; but still that was matter of 
opinion, and who was to decide it ? We thought it a 
clear case ; but, nevertheless, we did not take the law 
into our own hands, because we did not wish to bring 
about a revolution, nor to break up the Union ; for I 
maintain that between submission to the decision of 
the constituted tribunals, and revolution or disunion, 
there is no middle ground ; there is no ambiguous 
condition, half allegiance and half rebellion. And, 
sir, how futile, how very futile it is to admit the 
right of State interference, and then attempt to save 
it from the character of unlawful resistance by adding 
terms of qualification to the causes and occasions, 
leaving all these qualifications, like the case itself, in 
the discretion of the State governments ! It must be 
a clear case, it is said, a deliberate case, a palpable 
case, a dangerous case. But then the State is still left 
at liberty to decide for herself what is clear, what is 
deliberate, what is palpable, what is dangerous. Do 
adjectives and epithets avail anything ? 

Sir, the human mind is so constituted that the 
merits of both sides of a controversy appear very clear 
and very palpable to those who respectively espouse 
them ; and both sides usually grow clearer as the con- 
troversy advances. South Carolina sees unconstitu- 



200 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

tionality in the tariff ; she sees oppression there, also, 
and she sees danger. Pennsylvania, with a vision not 
less sharp, looks at the same tariff, and sees no such 
thing in it ; she sees it all constitutional, all useful, 
all safe. The faith of South Carolina is strengthened 
by opposition, and she now not only sees, but resolves 
that the tariff is palpably unconstitutional, oppressive, 
and dangerous ; but Pennsylvania, not to be behind 
her neighbors, and equally willing to strengthen her 
own faith by a confident asseveration, resolves, also, 
and gives to every warm affirmative of South Carolina 
a plain, downright, Pennsylvania negative. South 
Carolina, to show the strength and unity of her 
opinion, brings her assembly to a unanimity, within 
seven voices ; Pennsylvania, not to be outdone in 
this respect any more than in others, reduces her 
dissentient fraction to a single vote. Now, sir, again, 
I ask the gentleman, What is to be done ? Are these 
States both right ? Is he bound to consider them 
both right ? If not, which is in the wrong ? or 
rather, which has the best right to decide? And if 
he, and if I, are not to know what the Constitution 
means, and what it is, till those two State legislatures, 
and the twenty-two others, shall agree in its construc- 
tion, what have we sworn to when we have sworn to 
maintain it? I was forcibly struck, sir, with one 
reflection, as the gentleman went on in his speech. 
He quoted Mr. Madison's resolutions to prove that a 
State may interfere in a case of deliberate, palpable, 
and dangerous exercise of a power not granted. 
The honorable member supposes the tariff law to be 
such an exercise of power ; and that consequently a 
case has arisen in which the State may, if it see fit, 
interfere by its own law. Now it so happens, never- 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 201 

theless, that Mr. Madison deems this same tariff 
law quite constitutional. Instead of a clear and pal- 
pable violation, it is, in his judgment, no violation 
at all. So that, while they use his authority for a 
hypothetical case, they reject it in the very case be- 
fore them. All this, sir, shows the inherent futility — 
I had almost used a stronger word — of conceding this 
power of interference to the State, and then attempt- 
ing to secure it from abuse by imposing qualifications 
of which the States themselves are to judge. One 
of two things is true, — either the laws of the Union 
are beyond the discretion and beyond the control of 
the States ; or else we have no Constitution of general 
government, and are thrust back again to the days of 
the Confederation. 

Let me here say, sir, that if the gentleman's doc- 
trine had been received and acted upon in New Eng- 
land in the times of the Embargo and non-intercourse, 
we should probably not now have been here. The gov- 
ernment would very likely have gone to pieces and 
crumbled into dust. No stronger case can ever arise 
than existed under those laws ; no States can ever 
entertain a clearer conviction than the New England 
States then entertained ; and if they had been under 
the influence of that heresy of opinion, as I must call 
it, which the honorable member espouses, this Union 
would, in all probability, have been scattered to the 
four winds. I ask the gentleman, therefore, to apply 
his principles to that case ; I ask him to come forth 
and declare whether, in his opinion, the New Eng- 
land States would have been justified in interfer- 
ing to break up the Embargo system under the con- 
scientious opinions which they held upon it? Plad 
they aright to annul that law? Does he admit or 



202 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

deny? If what is thought palpably unconstitutional 
in South Carolina justifies that State in arresting the 
progress of the law, tell me whether that which was 
thought palpably unconstitutional also in Massachu- 
setts would have justified her in doing the same thing. 
Sir, I deny the whole doctrine. It has not a foot of 
ground in the Constitution to stand on. No public 
man of reputation ever advanced it in Massachusetts 
in the warmest times, or could maintain himself upon 
it there at any time. 

I wish now, sir, to make a remark upon the Vir- 
ginia Resolutions of 1798. I cannot undertake to say 
how these resolutions were understood by those who 
passed them. Their language is not a little indefinite. 
In the case of the exercise by Congress of a danger- 
ous power not granted to them, the resolutions assert 
the right, on the part of the State, to interfere and 
arrest the progress of the evil. This is susceptible of 
more than one interpretation. It may mean no more 
than that the States may interfere by complaint and 
remonstrance, or by proposing to the people an altera- 
tion of the Federal Constitution. This would all be 
quite unobjectionable, or it may be that no more is 
meant than to assert the general right of revolution, 
as against all governments, in cases of intolerable 
oppression. This no one doubts ; and this, in my 
opinion, is all that he who framed the resolutions 
could have meant by it ; for I shall not readily be- 
lieve that he was ever of opinion that a State, under 
the Constitution and in conformity with it, could, 
upon the ground of her own opinion of its unconstitu- 
tionality, however clear and palpable she might think 
the case, annul a law of Congress, so far as it should 
operate on herself, by her own legislative power. 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 203 

I must now beg to ask, sir, Whence is this supposed 
right of the States derived? Where do they find the 
power to interfere with the laws of the Union ? Sir, 
the opinion which the honorable gentleman maintains 
is a notion founded in a total misapprehension, in 
my judgment, of the origin of this government, and 
of the foundation on which it stands. I hold it to be 
a popular government, erected by the people ; those 
who administer it responsible to the people ; and itself 
capable of being amended and modified, just as the 
people may choose it should be. It is as popular, just 
as truly emanating from the people, as the State gov- 
ernments. It is created for one purpose ; the State 
governments for another. It has its own powers ; 
they have theirs. There is no more authority with 
them to arrest the operation of a law of Congress 
than with Congress to arrest the operation of their 
laws. We are here to administer a Constitution ema- 
nating immediately from the people, and trusted by 
them to our administration. It is not the creature of 
the State governments. It is of no moment to the 
argument that certain acts of the State legislatures are 
necessary to fill our seats in this body. That is not 
one of their original State powers, a part of the sov- 
ereignty of the State. It is a duty which the people, 
by the Constitution itself, have imposed on the State 
legislatures, and which they might have left to be per- 
formed elsewhere, if they had seen fit. So they have 
left the choice of President with electors ; but all this 
does not affect the proposition that this whole gov- 
ernment — President, Senate, and House of Eepre- 
sentatives — is a popular government. It leaves it 
still all its popular character. The governor of a State 
(in some of the States) is chosen, not directly by the 



204 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

people, but by those who are chosen by the people for 
the purpose of performing, among other duties, that 
of electing a governor. Is the government of the 
State, on that account, not a popular government? 
This government, sir, is the independent offspring of 
the popular will. It is not the creature of State legis- 
latures ; nay, more, if the whole truth must be told, 
the people brought it into existence, established it, 
and have hitherto supported it for the very purpose, 
amongst others, of imposing certain salutary restraints 
on State sovereignties. The States cannot now make 
war ; they cannot contract alliances ; they cannot 
make, each for itself, separate regulations of com- 
merce ; they cannot lay imposts ; they cannot coin 
money. If this Constitution, sir, be the creature of 
State legislatures, it must be admitted that it has 
obtained a strange control over the volitions of its 
creators. 

The people, then, sir, erected this government. 
They gave it a Constitution, and in that Constitution 
they have enumerated the powers which they bestow 
on it. They have made it a limited government. 
They have defined its authority. They have restrained 
it to the exercise of such powers as are granted ; and 
all others, they declare, are reserved to the States or 
the people. But, sir, they have not stopped here. If 
they had, they would have accomplished but half their 
work. No definition can be so clear as to avoid possi- 
bility of doubt ; no limitation so precise as to exclude 
all uncertainty. Who, then, shall construe this grant 
of the people ? Who shall interpret their will, where 
it may be supposed they have left it doubtful ? With 
whom do they repose this ultimate right of deciding 
on the powers of the government? Sir, they have 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 205 

settled all this in the fullest manner. They have left 
it with the government itself, in its appropriate 
branches. Sir, the very chief end, the main design 
for which the whole Constitution was framed and 
adopted was to establish a government that should not 
be obliged to act through State agency, or depend on 
State opinion and State discretion. The people had 
had quite enough of that kind of government under 
the Confederation. Under that system, the legal 
action, the application of law to individuals, belonged 
exclusively to the States. Congress could only recom- 
mend ; their acts were not of binding force till the 
States had adopted and sanctioned them. Are we 
in that condition still? Are we yet at the mercy of 
State discretion and State construction? Sir, if we 
are, then vain will be oar attempt to maintain the 
Constitution under which we sit. 

But, sir, the people have wisely provided, in the 
Constitution itself, a proper, suitable mode and tri- 
bunal for settling questions of constitutional law. 
There are in the Constitution grants of powers to 
Congress, and restrictions on these powers. There 
are, also, prohibitions on the States. Some authority 
must, therefore, necessarily exist, having the ultimate 
jurisdiction to fix and ascertain the interpretation of 
these grants, restrictions, and prohibitions. The Con- 
stitution has itself pointed out, ordained, and estab- 
lished that authority. How has it accomplished this 
great and essential end ? By declaring, sir, that " the 

Constitution, and the lavis of the United States 
made in pursuance thereof, shall be the supreme law 
of the land, anything in the Constitution or laws of 

any State to the contrary notwithstanding." 

This, sir, was the first great step. By this the 



206 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

supremacy of the Constitution and laws of the United 
States is declared. The people so will it. No State 
law is to be valid which comes in conflict with the 
Constitution, or any law of the United States passed 
in pursuance of it. But who shall decide this ques- 
tion of interference ? To whom lies the last appeal ? 
This, sir, the Constitution itself decides also, by de- 
claring " that the judicial power shall extend to all 
cases arising under the Constitution and laws of the 
United States." These two provisions cover the 
whole ground. They are, in truth, the keystone of 
the arch ! With these it is a government ; without 
them it is a confederation. In pursuance of these 
clear and express provisions, Congress established, at 
its very first session, in the judicial act, a mode for 
carrying them into full effect, and for bringing all 
questions of constitutional power to the final decision 
of the Supreme Court. It then, sir, became a gov- 
ernment. It then had the means of self -protection ; 
and but for this, it would, in all probability, have 
been now among things which are past. Having con- 
stituted the government and declared its powers, the 
people have further said that, since somebody must 
decide on the extent of these powers, the government 
shall itself decide ; subject always, like other popular 
governments, to its responsibility to the people. And 
now, sir, I repeat, how is it that a State legislature 
acquires any power to interfere ? Who or what gives 
them the right to say to the people, " We, who are 
your agents and servants for one purpose, will under- 
take to decide that your other agents and servants, 
appointed by you for another purpose, have tran- 
scended the authority you gave them ! ' The reply 
would be, I think, not impertinent, — " Who made 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 207 

you a judge over another's servants ? To their own 
masters they stand or fall." 

Sir, I deny this power of State legislatures alto- 
gether. It cannot stand the test of examination. 
Gentlemen may say that, in an extreme case, a State 
government might protect the people from intolerable 
oppression. Sir, in such a case the people might pro- 
tect themselves without the aid of the State govern- 
ments. Such a case warrants revolution. It must 
make, when it comes, a law for itself. A nullifying 
act of a State legislature cannot alter the case, nor 
make resistance any more lawful. In maintaining 
these sentiments, sir, I am but asserting the rights 
of the people. I state what they have declared, and 
insist on their right to declare it. They have chosen 
to repose this power in the general government, and 
I think it my duty to support it, like other constitu- 
tional powers. 

For myself, sir, I do not admit the competency of 
South Carolina, or any other State, to prescribe my 
constitutional duty, or to settle, between me and the 
people, the validity of laws of Congress for which I 
have voted. I decline her umpirage. I have not 
sworn to support the Constitution according to her 
construction of its clauses. I have not stipulated, by 
my oath of office or otherwise, to come under any 
responsibility, except to the people, and those whom 
they have appointed to pass upon the question whether 
laws supported by my votes conform to the Constitu- 
tion of the country. And, sir, if we look to the gen- 
eral nature of the case, could anything have been more 
preposterous than to make a government for the whole 
Union, and yet leave its powers subject, not to one 
interpretation, but to thirteen or twenty-four interpre- 



208 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

tations? Instead of one tribunal, established by all, 
responsible to all, with power to decide for all, shall 
constitutional questions be left to four-and-tvventy 
popular bodies, each at liberty to decide for itself, 
and none bound to respect the decisions of others ; 
and each at liberty, too, to give a new construction on 
every new election of its own members ? Would any- 
thing with such a principle in it, or rather with such 
a destitution of all principle, be fit to be called a gov- 
ernment ? No, sir. It should not be denominated a 
Constitution. It should be called, rather, a collection 
of topics for everlasting controversy ; heads of debate 
for a disputatious people. It would not be a govern- 
ment. It would not be adequate to any practical good, 
or fit for any country to live under. 

To avoid all possibility of being misunderstood, 
allow me to repeat again, in the fullest manner, that 
I claim no powers for the government by forced or 
unfair construction. I admit that it is a government 
of strictly limited powers; of enumerated, specified, 
and particularized powers ; and that whatsoever is not 
granted is withheld. But notwithstanding all this, 
and however the grant of powers may be expressed, 
its limit and extent may yet, in some cases, admit of 
doubt ; and the general government would be good 
for nothing, it would be incapable of long existing, 
if some mode had not been provided in which those 
doubts, as they should arise, might be peaceably but 
authoritatively solved. 

And now, Mr. President, let me run the honorable 
gentleman's doctrine a little into its practical ajDplica- 
tion. Let us look at his probable modus operandi. 
If a thing can be done, an ingenious man can tell how 
it is to be done, and I wish to be informed how this 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 209 

State interference is to be put in practice without 
violence, bloodshed, and rebellion. We will take the 
existing case of the tariff law. South Carolina is said 
to have made up her opinion upon it. If we do not 
repeal it (as we probably shall not), she will then 
apply to the case the remedy of her doctrine. She 
will, we must suppose, pass a law of her legislature 
declaring the several acts of Congress, usually called 
the tariff laws, null and void, so far as they respect 
South Carolina or the citizens thereof. So far, all is 
a paper transaction, and easy enough. But the col- 
lector at Charleston is collecting the duties imposed 
by these tariff laws. He, therefore, must be stopped. 
The collector will seize the goods if the tariff duties 
are not paid. The State authorities will undertake 
their rescue, the marshal, with his posse, will come to 
the collector's aid, and here the contest begins. The 
militia of the State will be called out to sustain the 
nullifying act. They will march, sir, under a very 
gallant leader ; for I believe the honorable member 
himself commands the militia of that part of the State. 
He will raise the nullifying act on his standard 
and spread it out as his banner ! It will have a pre- 
amble, setting forth that the tariff laws are palpable, 
deliberate, and dangerous violations of the Constitu- 
tion ! He will proceed, v/ith this banner flying, to 
the custom-house in Charleston, 

" All the while, 
Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds." 1 

Arrived at the custom-house, he will tell the collector 
that he must collect no more duties under any of the 
tariff laws. This he will be somewhat puzzled to say, 
by the way, with a grave countenance, considering 
1 See Milton's Paradise Lost, book i. lines 539, 540. 



210 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

what hand South Carolina herself had in that of 
1816. But, sir, the collector would not, probably, 
desist at his bidding. He would show him the law of 
Congress, the treasury instruction, and his own oath 
of office. He would say he should perform his duty, 
come what might. 

Here would ensue a pause ; for they say that a 
certain stillness precedes the tempest. The trum- 
peter would hold his breath awhile, and before all this 
military array should fall on the custom-house, col- 
lector, clerks, and all, it is very probable some of 
those composing it would request of their gallant 
commander-in-chief to be informed a little upon the 
point of law ; for they have, doubtless, a just respect 
for his opinions as a lawyer, as well as for his bravery 
as a soldier. They know he has read Blackstone and 
the Constitution, as well as Turenne and Vauban. 1 
They would ask him, therefore, something concerning 
their rights in this matter. They would inquire 
whether it was not somewhat dangerous to resist a 
law of the United States. What would be the na- 
ture of their offense, they would wish to learn, if they, 
by military force and array, resisted the execution in 
Carolina of a law of the United States, and it should 
turn out, after all, that the law was constitutional f 
He would answer, of course, Treason. No lawyer 
could give any other answer. John Fries, 2 he would 

1 Turenne was a famous general, and Vauban a great mili- 
tary engineer, both of whom added to the renown of France in 
the seventeenth century. 

2 Fries's Rebellion, in eastern Pennsylvania, early in 1799, 
was occasioned by the direct government tax laid July, 1798, 
and begun to be assessed January, 1799. This tax fell in Penn- 
sylvania mainly on houses and lands. John Fries, an itiner- 
ant vendue-crier, the leader of the revolt, was sentenced to be 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 211 

tell them, had learned that some years ago. How, 
then, they would ask, do you propose to defend us? 
We are not afraid of bullets, but treason has a way 
of taking people off that we do not much relish. How 
do you propose to defend us? " Look at my floating 
banner," he would reply ; " see there the nullifying 
law ! " Is it your opinion, gallant commander, they 
would then say, that if we should be indicted for trea- 
son, that same floating banner of yours would make 
a good plea in bar ? " South Carolina is a sovereign 
State," he would reply. That is true ; but would the 
judge admit our plea? " These tariff laws," he would 
repeat, " are unconstitutional, palpably, deliberately, 
dangerously." That may all be so ; but if the tri- 
bunal should not happen to be of that opinion, shall 
we swing for it? We are ready to die for our coun- 
try, but it is rather an awkward business, this dying 
without touching the around ! After all, that is a 
sort of hemp tax worse than any part of the tariff. 

Mr. President, the honorable gentleman would be 
in a dilemma like that of another great general. He 
would have a knot before him which he could net 
untie. He must cut it with his sword. He must say 
to his followers, " Defend yourselves with your bay- 
onets ; " and this is war, — civil war. 

Direct collision, therefore, between force and force, 
is the unavoidable result of that remedy for the re- 
vision of unconstitutional laws which the gentleman 
contends for. It must happen in the very first case 
to which it is applied. Is not this the plain result? 
To resist by force the execution of a law, generally, 
is treason. Can the courts of the United States take 

hanged, but was pardoned by President Adams. McMaster's 
History, ii. 434 ; Schouler's History, i. 447. 



212 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

notice of the indulgence of a State to commit treason ? 
The common saying, that a State cannot commit trea- 
son herself, is nothing to the purpose. Can she au- 
thorize others to do it ? If John Fries had produced 
an act of Pennsylvania annulling the law of Congress, 
would it have helped his case ? Talk about it as 
we will, these doctrines go the length of revolution. 
They are incompatible with any peaceable administra- 
tion of the government. They lead directly to dis- 
union and civil commotion ; and therefore it is that 
at their commencement, when they are first found to 
be maintained by respectable men and in a tangible 
form, I enter my public protest against them all. 

The honorable gentleman argues that if this gov- 
ernment be the sole judge of the extent of its own 
powers, whether that right of judging be in Congress 
or the Supreme Court, it equally subverts State sov- 
ereignty. This the gentleman sees, or thinks he sees, 
although he cannot perceive how the right of judging 
in this matter, if left to the exercise of State legisla- 
tures, has _ any tendency to subvert the government of 
the Union. The gentleman's opinion may be that the 
right ought not to have been lodged with the general 
government ; he may like better such a Constitution 
as we should have under the right of State interfer- 
ence ; but I ask him to meet me on the plain matter 
of fact. I ask him to meet me on the Constitution 
itself. I ask him if the power is not found there, 
clearly and visibly found there ? 

But, sir, what is this danger, and what are the 
grounds of it ? Let it be remembered that the Con- 
stitution of the United States is not unalterable. It 
is to continue in its present form no longer than the 
people who established it shall choose to continue it. 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 213 

If they shall become convinced that they have made 
an injudicious or inexpedient partition and distribu- 
tion of power between the State governments and the 
general government, they can alter that distribution 
at will. 

If anything be found in the national Constitution, 
either by original provision or subsequent interpreta- 
tion, which ought not to be in it, the people know how 
to get rid of it. If any construction unacceptable to 
them be established so as to become practically a part 
of the Constitution, they will amend it at their own 
sovereign pleasure. But while the people choose to 
maintain it as it is, while they are satisfied with it and 
refuse to change it, who has given, or who can give, 
to the State legislatures a right to alter it, either by 
interference, construction, or otherwise? Gentlemen 
do not seem to recollect that the people have any 
power to do anything for themselves. They imagine 
there is no safety for them any longer than they are 
under the close guardianship of the State legislatures. 
Sir, the people have not trusted their safety in regard 
to the general Constitution to these hands. They have 
required other security, and taken other bonds. They 
have chosen to trust themselves, first, to the plain 
words of the instrument and to such construction as 
the government themselves, in doubtful cases, should 
put on their own powers, under their oaths of office, 
and subject to their responsibility to them ; just as the 
people of a State trust their own State governments 
with a similar power. Secondly, they have reposed 
their trust in the efficacy of frequent elections, and in 
their own power to remove their own servants and 
agents whenever they see cause. Thirdly, they have 
reposed trust in the judicial power which, in order that 



214 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

it might be trustworthy, they have made as respecta- 
ble, as disinterested, and as independent as was prac- 
ticable. Fourthly, they have seen fit to rely, in case 
of necessity or high expediency, on their known and 
admitted power to alter or amend the Constitution, 
peaceably and quietly, whenever experience shall point 
out defects or imperfections. And, finally, the peo- 
ple of the United States have at no time, in no way, 
directly or indirectly, authorized any State legislature 
to construe or interpret their high instrument of gov- 
ernment ; much less, to interfere, by their own power, 
to arrest its course and operation. 

If, sir, the people in these respects had done other- 
wise than they have done, their Constitution could 
neither have been preserved, nor would it have been 
worth preserving. And if its plain provisions shall 
now be disregarded, and these new doctrines interpo- 
lated in it, it will become as feeble and helpless a 
being as its enemies, whether early or more recent, 
could possibly desire. It will exist in every State, 
but as a poor dependent on State permission. It must 
borrow leave to be, and will be no longer than State 
pleasure or State discretion sees fit to grant the indul- 
gence and to prolong its poor existence. 

But, sir, although there are fears, there are hopes 
also. The people have preserved this, their own 
chosen Constitution, for forty years, and have seen 
their happiness, prosperity, and renown grow with 
its growth and strengthen with its strength. They 
are now, generally, strongly attached to it. Over- 
thrown by direct assault it cannot be ; evaded, under- 
mined, nullified, it will not be, if we and those who 
shall succeed us here as agents and representatives 
of the people shall conscientiously and vigilantly dis- 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 215 

charge the two great branches of our public trust, — 
faithfully to preserve and wisely to administer it. 

Mr. President, I have thus stated the reasons of my 
dissent to the doctrines which have been advanced and 
maintained. I am conscious of having detained you 
and the Senate much too long. I was drawn into the 
debate with no previous deliberation, such as is suited 
to the discussion of so grave and important a subject. 
But it is a subject of which my heart is full, and I 
have not been willing to suppress the utterance of its 
spontaneous sentiments. I cannot, even now, persuade 
myself to relinquish it without expressing once more 
my deep conviction that, since it respects nothing less 
than the Union of the States, it is of most vital and 
essential importance to the public happiness. I pro- 
fess, sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily 
in view the prosperity and honor of the whole coun- 
try, and the preservation of our Federal Union. It is 
to that Union we owe our safety at home and our con- 
sideration and dignity abroad. It is to that Union 
that we are chiefly indebted for whatever makes us 
most proud of our country. That Union we reached 
only by the discipline of our virtues in the severe 
school of adversity. It had its origin in the neces- 
sities of disordered finance, prostrate commerce, and 
ruined credit. Under its benign influences these 
great interests immediately awoke as from the dead, 
and sprang forth with newness of life. Every year 
of its duration has teemed with fresh proofs of its 
utility and its blessings; and although our territory 
has stretched out wider and wider, and our population 
spread farther and farther, they have not outrun its 
protection or its benefits. It has been to us all a copi- 
ous fountain of national, social, and personal happiness. 



216 THE GREAT DEBATE. 

I liave not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the 
Union, to see what might lie hidden in the dark recess 
behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances of pre- 
serving liberty when the bonds that unite us together 
shall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed my- 
self to hang over the precipice of disunion, to see 
whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depth 
of the abyss below ; nor could I regard him as a safe 
counselor in the affairs of this government whose 
thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, not 
how the Union may be best preserved, but how toler- 
able might be the condition of the people when it shall 
be broken up and destroyed. While the Union lasts, 
we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread 
out before us for us and our children. Beyond that 
I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant that in 
my day, at least, that curtain may not rise! God 
grant that on my vision never may be opened what 
lies behind ! When my eyes shall be turned to behold 
for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him 
shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a 
once glorious Union ; on States dissevered, discord- 
ant, belligerent ; on a land rent with civil feuds, or 
drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood ! Let their 
last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gor- 
geous ensign of the republic, now known and honored 
throughout the earth, still full high advanced, 1 its arms 
and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a 
stripe erased or polluted nor a single star obscured, 
bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory 
as " What is all this worth ? ' nor those other words 
of delusion and folly, " Liberty first and Union after- 

1 " Th' imperial ensign, which, full high advanc'd." 

Milton's Paradise Lost, book i. line 653. 



SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER. 217 

irds; " but everywhere, spread all over in characters 
living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they 
at over the sea and over the land, and in every 
nd under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, 
ar to every true American heart, — Liberty and 
aion, now and forever, one and inseparable ! ' 



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